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THE    PSALMS    IN 
HUMAN    LIFE 


First  Edition December  igo3 

Reprinted January    IQ04 

Second  Edition January     IQ04 

Third  Edition March        igo4 

Reprinted  (^^s.)  .          ....  September  igo4 

Reprinted October      igo4 

Reprinted December  IQ04 

Reprinted Decetnber  1Q04 

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Fourth  Edition  {ss.  6d.)    .    .  November  igr^ 


THE    PSALMS 


HUMAN    LIFE 


r/. 


By  ROWLAND  E.  PROTHERO,  M.V.O. 

FORMERLY    FELLOW   OF    ALL   SOULS   COLLEGE,    OXFORD 
AUTHOR   OF    "the    LIFE  OF    DEAN   STANLEY"   ETC 


NEW    AND    ENLARGED    EDITION 


NEW    YORK 

E.    P.   BUTTON    AND   COMPANY 

1914 


^ 


All  Rights  Reserved 


PREFACE   TO   FOURTH    EDITION 

THE  reception  which  has  been  given  to  The 
Psalms  in  Human  Life,  since  the  first 
pubHcation  of  the  book  in  1903,  is  itself  a  striking 
illustration  of  the  sway  which  the  Hebrew  Psalter 
continues  to  exercise  over  the  hearts  of  men. 

The  significance  of  the  Psalms  in  human  ex- 
perience may  probably  be  realised  in  various  ways. 
The  object  of  this  book  has  been  to  bring  out  the 
fact  by  cumulative  evidence,  drawn  from  a  wide 
range  of  history. 

In  this  enlarged  edition  of  the  original  book, 
the  structure  and  many  of  the  chapters  remain 
unaltered.  But  some  general  illustrations  have 
been  added,  as  well  as  upwards  of  forty  instances 
of  the  use  of  the  Psalms  either  by  famous  men,  or 
in  famous  books,  or  on  famous  occasions. 

Among  the  most  important  of  these  added 
instances  are  those  associated  with  the  Emperor 
Julian,  St.  Severinus  of  Vienna,  St.  Brendan  and 
his  Voyage,  Benvenuto  Cellini,  Pizarro  in  Peru, 
Joseph  de  Maistre,  Thackeray,   F.  W.  H.  Myers, 


vi  PREFACE  TO  FOURTH  EDITION 

Hazlitt  and  Northcote,  Sir  Henry  Taylor,  Sir 
Harry  Smith,  the  Franco-German  War,  Gladstone, 
President  Lincoln,  and  President  Garfield. 

ROWLAND  E.  PROTHERO. 

September  6,  191 3. 


PREFACE   TO    FIRST   EDITION 

SOME  of  the  notes,  on  which  the  following  pages 
are  founded,  were  discussed  with  Dean  Stanley 
in  1878.  A  list  of  historical  instances  of  the  use  of 
the  Psalms,  made  by  the  Dean  himself,  was  sent  to 
me  in  1895  by  the  Right  Rev.  H.  H.  Montgomer^^, 
then  Bishop  of  Tasmania.  To  it  I  am  indebted  for 
the  reference  (p.  352)  to  the  reopening  of  the 
Cathedral  at  Moscow,  after  the  French  invasion 
of  1 81 2. 

Since  m}'  collection  of  notes  was  begun,  the  ground 
has  been  partly  occupied  by  the  Rev.  John  Ker, 
D.D.  (1886),  and  the  Rev.  Charles  L.  Marson  (1895). 
But  Dr.  Ker's  book  was  unfinished,  and  both  he 
and  Mr.  Marson  followed  a  method  of  treatment 
different  from  that  which  is  adopted  in  the  following 
pages. 

In  Appendix  A  will  be  found  a  general  list  of  the 
principal  authorities.  Appendix  B  arranges  the 
historical  instances,  which  in  the  text  are^ grouped, 
more  or  less,  in  order  of  time,  under  the  particular 
Psalms  that  are  quoted.  The  Index  contains,  in 
addition  to  the  ordinary  matter,  references  to  the 


viii        PREFACE  TO  FIRST  EDITION 

books    from    which    the    historical    instances    are 
derived. 

For  assistance  in  the  preparation  of  Appendix  A, 
and  for  the  Index,  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  G.  H.  Holden, 
Assistant  Librarian  of  All  Souls  College,  Oxford,  and 
to  Mr.  C.  Nolan  Ferrall.  To  Mr.  Holden  I  owe 
Appendix  B. 

ROWLAND  E.  PROTHERO. 

September  6,  1903. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 

General 

The  Psalms  as  the  mirror  of  the  human  soul  ;  their  associa- 
tion with  national  and  individual  life  ;  their  universality  ; 
not  limited  to  any  age,  nation,  or  variety  of  Christian 
creed  ;  their  translation  into  verse  ;  their  influence  in 
literature  ;  the  first  of  religious  autobiographies  ;  power 
over  human  lives  in  all  ages  of  history     . 


CHAPTER  II 

Early  Ages  of  Christianity 

The  Psalms  in  services,  ceremonies,  and  the  catacombs  ; 
use  in  persecution — Crispin  and  Crispinian,  Theodore 
the  Martyr,  the  Saracen  convei't,  the  Emperor  Maurice  ; 
in  public  worship  ;  in  ordinary  life — Origen,  the  family 
of  Gregory  Nazianzen,  Monica  :  on  deathbeds — Basil  the 
Great,  Ambrose,  Paulinus  of  Nola,  Cyril  of  Alexandria  ; 
in  triumph  over  Paganism — the  Emperor  Julian  at  Anti- 
och  ;  influence  of  the  Psalms  in  Monasticism — the  Egyp- 
tian Anchorites,  Basil  and  monastic  communities  of  the 
East,  Athanasius  and  the  West,  Jerome  and  Paula,  Martin 
of  Tours  ;  the  Psalms  in  action — struggle  between  Church 
and  State — Athanasius  and  Constantius,  Basil  and 
Valens,  Ambrose  and  Theodosius  ;  the  Psalms  in  human 
thought — Co7tfesstoi! s  oi  AugustiuQ  .  .  .     11-39 


CHAPTER  III 

The  Formation  of  Nations 

The  invasions  of  the  barbarians  ;    supremacy  of  moral  power 
over  brute  force,  Odoacer  and  Severinus  of  Vienna,  Totila 


CONTENTS 


PAGES 

and  Benedict ;  the  Rule  of  Benedict;  monastic  mission- 
aries ;  translation  of  the  Psalms  into  Sclavonic  ;  the  Psalms 
in  the  lives  of  Columban,  Gall,  Patrick,  Brendan,  Columba, 
Cuthbert  ;  Irish  and  British  Christianity — Battle  of  Mold, 
Kentigem,  Bangor  ;  Roman  Christianity — the  island  of 
Death  and  Silence  ;  Gregory  the  Great  ;  coming  of  Augus- 
tine ;  introduction  of  Benedictine  Rule  ;  its  foundation 
on  the  Psalms  ;  its  establishment  in  England — Benedict 
Biscop,  Wilfrid,  Neot,  Dunstan  ;  universality  of  the  Rule  40-71 


CHAPTER  IV 

The  Middle  Ages 

The  battle  of  Vougle  ;  the  Psalms  in  ecclesiastical  or  semi- 
ecclesiastical  history  :  (i)  The  Papacy  and  the  Empire — 
Charlemagne,  Gregory  vii.  and  Henry  iv.,  Anselm  and 
William  Rufus,  Henry  11.  and  Thomas  a  Becket,  Alex- 
ander in.  and  Frederick  Barbarossa  ;  (2)  pilgrimages  ; 
(3)  the  crusades,  Abp.  Baldwin,  Richard  i.,  Henry  v., 
Abbot  Adelme  at  the  Tagus,  Cardinal  Ximenes,  Deme- 
trius of  the  Don ;  (4)  the  religious  revival,  Bernard, 
Stephen  Harding  and  the  Cistercian  reform,  Citeaux  and 
Fountains  Abbey,  Francis  of  Assisi  and  the  Franciscans  ; 
the  Psalms  in  secular  history — William  the  Conqueror, 
Vladimir  Monomachus,  David  i.  of  Scotland,  Abelard 
and  Heloise,  Louis  ix.  of  France,  William  Wallace  ;  in 
mediaeval  science — Albertus  Magnus,  the  Universal  Doctor; 
in  media3val  literature — -De  Imitatione  Christi,  Divina 
Commedia,  Piers  Plowman,  The  Golden  Legend        .  72-114 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Reformation  Era 

The  influence  of  the  Psalms  among  pioneers  of  the  Reformation 
— Wyclif,  John  Hus,  Jerome  of  Prague  ;  among  mediaeval 
reformers  — •  Savonarola  ;  among  Protestant  leaders  — 
Luther  and  Melancthon  ;  among  champions  of  the  Papacy 
— the  Emperor  Charles  v.  ;  among  leaders  in  the  revival  of 
art — Bcnvenuto  Cellini ;  among  discoverers  of  New  Worlds 
— Christopher  Columbus  ;  among  conquerors  of  empires — 
Pizarro  ;  among  men  of  the  New  Learning — Erasmus, 
Pico  della  Mirandola,  Sir  Thomas  More  •  John  Fisher  ; 
John  Houghton  ;  among  leaders  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Reaction — Xavicr  and  Teresa  ;  among  Protestant  and 
Roman  Catholic  Martyrs — Hooper,  Ridley,  and  South- 
well .....'.  115-145 


CONTENTS  xi 

CHAPTER  VI 

Struggle  between  England  and  Spain 

PAGER 

The  Psalms  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  the  English  Prayer-book 
version  ;  metrical  translations,  Germany,  France,  Eng- 
land, Scotland  ;  growth  of  the  influence  of  the  Psalms  in 
the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  ;  Lady  Jane 
Grey  ;  the  Duke  of  Suffolk  ;  Counts  Egmont  and  Horn  ; 
accession  of  Queen  Elizabeth  ;  the  murder  of  Damley  ; 
execution  of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots  ;  the  Spanish  Armada  ; 
the  Turkey  merchantmen  ;  the  wreck  of  the  Tobie  ;  the 
Earl  of  Essex  ;  Burghley  ;  Francis  Bacon  ;  Shakespeare  ; 
Richard  Hooker  ;  Bishop  Jewel ;  George  Herbert ;  Hooker 
on  the  Psalms     ......   146-177 


CHAPTER  VII 

The  Huguenots,  1524-98 

Marot's  Psalms  at  Court  ;  the  distinctive  heritage  of  the  Hugue- 
nots ;  the  power  of  the  Psalms  in  the  public  and  private 
lives  of  the  Huguenots — Palissy  the  potter,  Calvin,  Theo- 
dore de  Beza,  Robert  Estienne,  Casaubon,  Jean  Rousseau  ; 
traces  in  modern  France  of  the  struggle  between  Roman 
Catholics  and  Huguenots  ;  beginning  of  the  persecution 
of  Protestants — Jean  Leclcrc  (1524),  Wolfgang  Schuch 
(1525)  ;  indecision  of  Francis  i.  ;  the  Huguenot  martyrs  of 
Meaux,  Jean  Rabec,  massacre  of  Vassy  ;  commencement 
of  the  Wars  of  Religion  (1562)  ;  Coligny  at  Noj'ers  and 
Moncontour  ;  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  (1572)  ; 
Henry  of  Navarre,  flight  from  Paris  to  Alengon,  battles 
of  Courtras  and  Chateau  d'i\rques  ;  Edict  of  Nantes 
(1598)    .......     I7«-I97 


CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Huguenots,   1600- 1762   {continued) 

The  Roman  Catholic  Reaction — Vincent  de  Paul,  Fran9ois 
de  Sales  :  changed  conditions  of  the  Huguenot  cause  ; 
their  effect  on  the  character  of  the  Wars  of  Religion, 
1621-29 — Henri  de  Rohan,  sieges  of  Montauban  and  La 
Rochelle  ;  the  Roman  Catholic  triumph  and  maintenance 
of  the  strictest  orthodoxy — Port  Royal,  Pascal,  Madame 
Guyon  ;  edicts  against  the  Huguenots  and  the  use  of  the 
Psalter  :    the  Vaudois  and  Henri  Arnaud  ;    revocation  of 


xii  CONTENTS 


the  Edict  of  Nantes  (1685)  ;  persecution  of  the  French 
Huguenots  ;  the  rising  in  the  Cevennes — murder  of 
Fran9ois  du  Chayla,  Cavalier  and  the  Camisards,  Bellot, 
Martignargues  (1704),  SaUndres  (1709)  ;  the  Pastors  of 
the  Desert — Rang,  Roger,  Benezet,  Rochette  ;  effect  of  the 
Psalms  on  the  virtues  and  defects  of  the  Huguenots  .     19? 


CHAPTER  IX 

The  Puritans,  1600-60 

The  Pilgrim  Fathers  and  Benjamin  Franklin  ;  the  Psalms 
among  the  royalists — Jeremy  Taylor,  Bishop  Sanderson, 
Strafford,  and  Laud  :  the  Civil  War — Marston  Moor,  John 
Hampden,  Charles  i.  at  Newark  ;  Puritanism  as  a  poetical, 
religious,  and  political  force  in  Milton,  Bunyan,  and 
Cromwell  ......     223-251 

CHAPTER  X 

The  Scottish  Covenanters 

Progress  of  the  Reformation  in  Scotland — George  Wishart, 
John  Knox,  James  Melville  ;  the  Solemn  League  and 
Covenant  (1638)  ;  the  restoration  of  Episcopacy  (1661-64) ; 
popular  discontent — the  Pentland  rising,  Hugh  M'Kail, 
Drumclog  and  Bothwell  Bridge,  Richard  Cameron, 
Donald  Cargill,  Baillie  of  Jerviswood,  Sir  Patrick  Home 
of  Polwarth,  Alexander  Peden,  James  Renwick,  the 
Wigtown  Martyrs  ;  the  Revolution  of  1688  ;  siege  of 
Derry  (1689)      ......     252-285 

CHAPTER  XI 

I 688-1900 

Changed  character  of  the  romance  of  religion  :  the  Psalms  in 
the  lives  of  religious  leaders — Baxter,  Law,  John  Wesley, 
Charles  Wesley,  William  Wilberforce,  Keble,  Manning, 
Newman,  Thomas  Arnold,  Julius  Hare,  Neander,  Charles 
Kingsley,  Stanley,  Chalmers,  Irving  ;  the  Psalms  in  the 
lives  of  men  of  science — Locke,  Humboldt,  Joseph  de 
Maistre,  Maine  de  Biran,  Sir  W.  Hamilton,  Sir  James 
Simpson,  Frederick  Myers,  Romanes  ;  the  Psalms  in  litera- 
ture— Addison,  Cowper,  Boswell,  Hazlitt  and  North- 
cote,  Scott,  Byron,  Hogg,  Wordsworth,  Sir  Henry  Taylor, 
Tennyson,  Matthew  Arnold,  Robert  Browning,  Elizabeth 
Barrett  Browning,  Thackeray,  Fitzgerald,  Ruskin,  Car- 
lyle        .......     286-322 


CONTENTS  xiii 

CHAPTER  XII 
1688-1900  {continued) 

PAGES 

The  Psalms  in  philanthropic  movements — Prison  Reform 
and  John  Howard  ;  in  missionary  enterprises — John  Eliot, 
David  Brainerd,  William  Carey,  Henry  Martyn,  Alex- 
ander Duff,  Allen  Gardiner,  David  Livingstone,  Bishop 
Hannington  ;  in  ordinary  life — Colonel  Gardiner,  Thomas 
Carlyle,  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle  ;  in  political  life — Gladstone, 
Abraham  Lincoln,  James  Garfield  ;  in  secular  history — 
Brittany  and  La  Vendee,  the  execution  of  Madame  de 
Noailles,  the  evacuation  of  Moscow  in  181 2,  Waterloo,  the 
Revolution  of  1848,  the  German  march-song  and  Bourgct 
in  the  Franco-German  War  of  1870-71,  the  Empress 
Eugenie,  Captain  ConoUy  at  Bokhara  and  Havelock  at 
Jellalabad,  Duff,  Edwards,  and  "  Quaker  "  Wallace  in 
the  Indian  Mutiny,  the  Boer  War     ....     323-364 

APPENDIX  A 
Principal  Authorities     ...  .  .  .     365-383 

APPENDIX  B 
Index  to  the  Use  of  Particular  Psalms     .  .  .     384-391 

INDEX       .  .  i  ,  *  ,  .     393-417 


THE 
PSALMS   IN    HUMAN    LIFE 


CHAPTER    I 
General 

The  Psalms  as  the  mirror  of  the  human  soul  :  their  association 
with  national  and  individual  life  ;  their  universality  ;  not 
limited  to  any  age,  nation,  or  variety  of  Christian  creed  ;  their 
translation  into  verse  ;  their  influence  in  literature  ;  the 
first  of  religious  autobiographies  ;  power  over  human  lives  in 
all  ages  of  history. 

ABOVE  the  couch  of  David,  according  to 
Rabbinical  tradition,  there  hung  a  harp. 
The  midnight  breeze,  as  it  rippled  over  the  strings, 
made  such  music  that  the  poet-king  was  con- 
strained to  rise  from  his  bed,  and,  till  the  dawn 
flushed  the  eastern  skies,  he  wedded  words  to  the 
strains.  The  poetry  of  that  tradition  is  condensed 
in  the  saying  that  the  Book  of  Psalms  contains  the 
whole  music  of  the  heart  of  man,  swept  by  the  hand 
of  his  Maker.  In  it  are  gathered  the  l}^rical  burst 
of  his  tenderness,  the  moan  of  his  penitence,  the 
pathos  of  his  sorrow,  the  triumph  of  his  victory,  the 
despair  of  his  defeat,  the  firmness  of  his  confidence, 
the  rapture  of  his  assured  hope.  In  it  is  presented 
the  anatomy  of  all  parts  of  the  human  soul  ;  in 
it,  as  Heine  says,  are  collected  "  sunrise  and  sunset, 
birth  and  death,  promise  and  fulfilment — the  whole 
drama  of  humanity." 

In  the  Psalms  is  painted,  for  all  time,  in  fresh  un- 


2  GENERAL 

fading  colours,  the  picture  of  the  moral  warfare  of 
man,  often  bafQed  yet  never  wholly  defeated, 
struggling  upwards  to  all  that  is  best  and  highest  in 
his  nature,  always  aware  how  short  of  the  aim  falls 
the  attempt,  how  great  is  the  gulf  that  severs  the 
wish  from  its  fulfilment.  In  them  we  do  not  find 
the  innocent  converse  of  man  with  God  in  the 
Garden  of  Eden  ;  if  we  did,  the  book  would  for  our 
fallen  natures  lose  its  value.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
the  revelation  of  a  soul  deeply  conscious  of  sin, 
seeking,  in  broken  accents  of  shame  and  penitence 
and  hope,  to  renew  personal  communion  with  God, 
heart  to  heart,  thought  to  thought,  and  face  to  face. 
It  is  this  which  gives  to  the  Psalms  their  eternal 
truth.  It  is  this  which  makes  them  at  once  the 
breviary  and  the  viaticum  of  humanity.  Here  are 
gathered  not  only  pregnant  statements  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  religion,  and  condensed  maxims  of  spiritual 
life,  but  a  promptuary  of  effort,  a  summary  of 
devotion,  a  manual  of  prayer  and  praise, — and  all 
this  is  clothed  in  language,  which  is  as  rich  in  poetic 
beauty  as  it  is  universal  and  enduring  in  poetic  truth. 
The  Psalms,  then,  are  a  mirror  in  which  each  man 
sees  the  motions  of  his  own  soul.  They  express  in 
exquisite  words  the  kinship  which  every  thoughtful 
human  heart  craves  to  find  with  a  supreme,  un- 
changing, loving  God,  who  will  be  to  him  a  protector, 
guardian,  and  friend.  Thej^  utter  the  ordinary  ex- 
periences, the  familiar  thoughts  of  men  ;  but  they 
give  to  these  a  width  of  range,  an  intensity,  a  depth, 
and  an  elevation,  which  transcend  the  capacity  of 
the  most  gifted.  They  translate  into  speech  the 
spiritual  passion  of  the  loftiest  genius  ;  they  also 
utter,  with  the  beauty  born  of  truth  and  simphcity, 
and  with  exact  agreement  between  the  feeling  and 
the  expression,  the  inarticulate  and  humble  longings 
of  the  unlettered  peasant.  So  it  is  that,  in  every 
country,  the  language  of  the  Psalms  has  become  part 
of   the  daily   life   of    nations,    passing    into   their 


THE  PSALMS  IN  NATIONAL  LIFE         3 

proverbs,  mingling  with  their  conversation,  and  used 
at  every  critical  stage  of  existence. 

With  our  national,  as  well  as  with  our  private 
lives,  the  Psalms  are  inextricably  mingled.  On  the 
Psalms,  both  in  spirit  (Ps.  xx.  9)  and  language 
(Ps.  Ixviii.  i),  is  based  our  National  Anthem. 
From  the  lion  and  the  unicorn  of  Ps.  xxii.  21,  are 
taken  the  supporters  of  the  royal  arms.  In  all  the 
Coronation  Offices  from  Egbert  to  George  v.,  not 
only  the  services,  but  the  symbolic  ceremonies  are 
based  upon  the  Psalms — the  oil  of  gladness  above  his 
fellows,  the  sword  girded  on  the  thigh  of  the  most 
Mighty  one,  the  crown  of  pure  gold,  the  sceptre  of 
righteousness,  the  throne  of  judgment.  In  Christian 
Art,  as  the  conventional  representation  of  the  Wise 
Men  of  the  East  as  three  kings  is  founded  on  the 
Kings  of  Tharsis,  Saba,  and  Arabia  of  Ps.  Ixxii. 
lo-i  I ,  so  the  use  of  the  Pelican  as  a  symbol  of  Christ 
is  guided  by  the  comparison  of  the  pelican  in  the 
wilderness  of  Ps.  cii.  6.  A  Psalm  (li.,  verse  i) 
supplied  the  "  neck  verse  "  of  mediaeval  justice, 
which  afforded  the  test  of  benefit  of  clergy.  In  the 
Psalms  ancient  families  have  sought  their  mottoes, 
such  as  the  "  Fortuna  mea  in  bello  campo  "  (Ps. 
xvi.  7,  "  The  lot  is  fallen  unto  me  in  a  fair  ground  ") 
of  the  Beauchamps,  the  "  Nisi  Dominus  frustra  " 
(Ps.  cxxvii.  I,  "  Except  the  Lord  build  the  house  : 
their  labour  is  but  lost  that  build  it  ")  of  the 
Comptons,  or  the  "  Non  dormit  qui  custodit  " 
(Ps.  cxxi.  3,  "  He  that  keepeth  thee  will  not  sleep  ") 
of  the  Coghills.  Ancient  trade  guilds  have  found  in 
the  Psalms  the  legend  of  their  charter  of  incor- 
poration, like  the  "  Omnia  subjecisti  sub  pedibus, 
oves  et  boves  "  (Ps.  viii.  ^-"J ,  "  Thou  hast  put  all 
things  in  subjection  under  his  feet  ;  all  sheep  and 
oxen  ")  of  the  Butchers'  Company.  From  the 
Psalms  Edinburgh  takes  its  motto  of"  Nisi  Dominus 
frustra  "  (Ps.  cxxvii.  i).  From  the  same  source 
the    University    of    Oxford    took    its    "  Dominus 


4  GENERAL 

illuminatio  mea  "  (Ps.  xxvii.  i,  "  The  Lord  is  my 
light  "),  and  the  University  of  Durham  its  "  Funda- 
menta  ejus  "  (Ps.  Ixxxvii.  i,  "  Her  foundations  are 
upon  the  holy  hills  ").  Under  the  sanction,  as  it 
were,  of  a  text  from  the  Psalms  ("  The  earth  is  the 
Lord's,  and  all  that  therein  is  ;  the  compass  of  the 
world,  and  they  that  dwell  therein,"  Ps.  xxiv.  i), 
was  held  the  Great  Exhibition  of  185 1.  "  Except 
the  Lord  build  the  house,  their  labour  is  but  lost 
that  build  it  "  (Ps.  cxxvii.  i),  is  the  verse  chosen 
by  Smeaton  for  the  Eddystone  Lighthouse.  To  in- 
numerable almshouses,  hospitals,  public  buildings 
and  private  houses,  the  Psalms  have  supplied  in- 
scriptions. To  coins  they  have  furnished  legends, 
like  the  coins  of  the  Black  Prince  in  Guienne, 
"  Dominus  adjutor  mens  et  protector  meus,"  etc. 
(Ps.  xxviii.  8,  "  The  Lord  is  my  strength,  and  my 
shield  ") ;  the  florin  of  Edward  iii.in  1344,"  Domine, 
ne  in  furore  arguas  me"  (Ps.  vi.  i,  "O  Lord, 
rebuke  me  not  in  thy  displeasure  ")  ;  the  shilling 
of  Edward  vi.  in  1549,  "  Inimicos  ejus  induam 
confusione  "  (Ps.  cxxxii.  19,  "  As  for  his  enemies, 
I  shall  clothe  them  with  shame  ") :  or  the  coin  struck 
to  commemorate  the  execution  of  Charles  i.,  "  Et 
nunc,  reges,  intelligite  "  (Ps.  ii.  10,  "  Be  wise  now 
therefore,  O  ye  kings  ").  On  sword-blades,  tren- 
chers, and  rings,  verses  from  the  Psalms  are  in- 
scribed. By  texts  from  the  Psalms,  sundials  all 
over  the  world  enforce  the  solemn  lesson  of  the 
passage  of  time.  Here  are  the  "  Dies  mei  sicut 
umbra  declinaverunt  "  (Ps.  cii.  11)  of  San  Michele 
at  Venice,  or  Langen  Schwalbach  ;  the  English 
version,  "  My  days  are  gone  like  a  shadow,"  at 
Arbroath,  and  vSt.  Hilda's,  Whitby  ;  and  the  same 
idea,  "  L'homme  est  semblable  a  la  vanite  ;  ses 
jours  sont  comme  une  ombre  qui  passe  "  (Ps. 
cxliv.  4,  "  Man  is  like  a  thing  of  nought  ;  his  time 
passeth  away  like  a  shadow  "),  at  St.  Brelade's,  in 
Jersey. 


THE  PSALMS  IN  PRIVATE  LIFE  5 

With  a  psalm  we  are  married,  and  buried  ;  with 
a  psalm  we  reaHse  to  the  full,  and  end,  our  earthly 
existence.  With  what  strange  power  do  the 
familiar  w^ords  of  the  Book  come  home  to  us  as  we 
grow  older  !  Here  are  verses,  over  which  have 
stumbled ,  forty  years  ago ,  the  childish  lips  of  brothers , 
severed  from  us  by  years  of  change  and  absence, 
yet  now,  by  force  of  association  with  the  Psalms, 
seated  once  again  by  our  side  in  the  broken  circle 
of  home.  Here  again  is  a  passage,  which,  with 
trembling  voice  and  beating  heart,  we  read  aloud  by 
the  deathbed  of  one,  with  whose  passing  the  light 
faded  and  our  own  lives  grew  grey,  and  void,  and 
lampless.  Yet  still  it  is  to  the  Psalms,  even  when 
they  wound  us  most,  that  we  turn  for  help  and 
comfort.  As  life's  evening  closes  round  us,  and  as 
the  winged  thoughts,  that  we  have  made  our  own, 
sweep  in  from  the  horizon  of  our  memories,  no  words 
come  home  to  us  with  swifter,  surer  flight  than  those 
of  the  Psalms. 

To  weary  travellers  of  every  condition  and  at 
every  period  of  history,  the  Psalms  have  been  rivers 
of  refreshment  and  wells  of  consolation.  They 
alone  have  known  no  limitations  to  a  particular  age, 
country,  or  form  of  faith.  In  them  the  spirit  of 
controversy  and  the  war  of  creeds  are  forgotten  : 
love  of  the  Psalter  has  united  the  Anglican  and 
Roman  Catholic,  Presbyterian  and  Nonconformist. 
Over  the  parched  fields  of  theological  strife  the 
breath  of  the  Psalms  sweeps,  fresh  and  balmy.  For 
centuries  the  supplications  of  Christians,  clothed  in 
the  language  of  the  Psalter,  have  risen  like  incense 
to  the  altar-throne  of  God  ;  in  them  have  been  ex- 
pressed, from  age  to  age,  the  devotion  and  the 
theology  of  religious  communions  that,  in  all  else, 
were  at  deadly  feud.  Surviving  all  the  changes  in 
Church  and  State,  in  modes  of  thought,  in  habits  of 
life,  in  forms  of  expression,  the  Psalms,  as  devotional 
exercises,  have  sunk  into  our  hearts  ;    as  sublime 


6  GENERAL 

poetry,  have  fired  our  imaginations  ;  as  illustrations 
of  human  life,  have  arrested  our  minds  and  stored 
our  memories. 

In  the  Psalms  the  vast  hosts  of  suffering  humanity 
have  found,  from  the  time  of  Jonah  to  the  present 
day,  the  deepest  expression  of  their  hopes  and  fears. 
As  our  Lord  Himself  died  with  the  words  of  a  psalm 
upon  His  lips,  so  the  first  martyr,  Stephen,  had  used 
the  words  thus  hallowed.  So  also,  in  prison  at 
Philippi,  Paul  and  Silas  encouraged  themselves  by 
singing  psalms  throughout  the  night.  It  was  by 
the  Psalms  that  the  anguish;  wrung  from  tortured 
lips  on  the  cross,  at  the  stake,  on  the  scaffold,  and 
in  the  dungeon,  has  been  healed  and  solaced.  Strong 
in  the  strength  that  they  impart,  3^oung  boys  and 
timid  girls  have  risen  from  their  knees  in  the  breath- 
less amphitheatre,  thronged  with  its  quivering 
multitudes,  and  boldly  faced  the  lions.  Neither  the 
rudeness  of  mosaic  art,  nor  the  lapse  of  sixteen 
centuries,  has  obliterated  the  radiant  smile  of 
triumph  with  which  St.  Agnes  and  her  companions, 
on  the  walls  of  S.  Apolhnare  Nuovo  at  Ravenna, 
press  forward  to  greet  Him,  for  whose  sake  they 
gave  their  young  and  tender  bodies  to  be  tortured. 
With  the  Psalms  upon  their  tongues,  myriads  have 
died — now  in  quiet  sick-rooms,  surrounded  by  all 
who  have  loved  them  best  in  life — now  alone,  and 
far  from  home  and  kindred — now  hemmed  in  by 
fierce  enemies  howling  for  their  blood.  Thus  in  the 
Psalms  there  are  pages  which  are  stained  with  the 
life-blood  of  martyrs,  and  wet  with  the  tears  of 
saints  ;  others,  which  are  illuminated  by  the  vic- 
tories of  weak  humanity  over  suffering  and  fear  and 
temptation  ;  others,  which  glow  with  the  brightness 
of  heroic  constancy  and  almost  superhuman  courage. 
Over  the  famiUar  words  arc  written,  as  it  were  in  a 
palimpsest,  the  heart-stirring  romances  of  spiritual 
chivalry,  the  most  moving  tragedies  of  human  life 
and  action. 


VERSIFIERS  OF  THE  PSALMS  7 

How  much,  or  how  httle,  of  our  religion  is  a 
matter  of  habit,  or  a  personal  acquisition,  this  is  no 
place  to  inquire.  But  assuredly  the  Psalms  gain 
in  interest  and  power  from  their  associations  with 
human  history,  and  from  their  use  by  our  fellow- 
men  in  every  form  of  trial  which  can  confront 
humanity.  They  have  inspired  some  of  the  noblest 
hymns  in  our  language.  Their  rendering  into  verse 
has  occupied  many  of  the  most  gifted  men  in  the 
history  of  our  nation — knights  of  chivalry,  like  Sir 
Philip  Sidney,  aided  by  his  sister,  Margaret,  Countess 
of  Pembroke  ;  men  of  science,  like  Lord  Bacon,  in 
whose  version  the  philosopher  overmasters  the  poet  ; 
classical  scholars,  like  George  Sandys,  one  of  the 
most  successful  of  early  versifiers  ;  courtiers,  hke 
Sir  Thomas  Wyatt  ;  ambassadors,  like  Sir  Thomas 
Smith,  Sir  Henry  Wotton,  or  Hookham  Frere  ; 
distinguished  prelates,  such  as  Archbishop  Parker,  or 
Bishop  Ken,  or  Bishop  Hall,  or  Bishop  King  ;  queens 
and  kings,  like  Elizabeth,  or  James  i.  ;  sturdy 
Puritans,  such  as  Francis  Rous  ;  Cromwelhan 
captains,  like  Thomas,  Lord  Fairfax,  or  George 
Wither,  whose  sweet  vein  of  early  poetry  was 
soured  by  the  vinegar  of  politics  and  polemics  ; 
poets  like  Crashaw,  Phinehas  Fletcher,  Henry 
Vaughan,  Burns,  Cowper,  or  Milton,  whose  versions, 
with  one  exception,  fall  below  the  standard  which  we 
should  have  expected  his  lyric  genius  and  devotional 
fervour  to  attain  ;  parish  priests,  like  George  Her- 
bert and  John  Keble  ;  heroes  of  the  Dunciad,  hke 
Sir  Richard  Blackmore  and  Luke  Milbourne  ; 
masters  of  prose,  hke  Addison  ;  Methodists,  hke 
Charles  Wesley  ;  Nonconformists,  such  as  Isaac 
Watts,  whose  version  of  Ps.  xc,  "  O  God,  our  help 
in  ages  past,"  is  perhaps  the  finest  hymn  in  the 
Enghsh  language. 

Poets  and  men  of  letters,  like  Dante  and  Camoens, 
Shakespeare  and  Cervantes,  Wordsworth,  Walter 
Scott,  Carlyle  and  Ruskin,  Heine  and  Herder,  Pascal 


8  GENERAL 

and  Lamartine,  have  acknowledged  the  unrivalled 
charm  of  the  Psalter.  In  one  of  the  Psalms,  Al- 
bertus  Magnus  found  the  secret  of  all  true  prayer  ; 
in  another,  John  Keble  found  the  secret  of  all  true 
poetry.  From  the  Psalms  hymn-writers  have 
drawn  their  most  striking  inspirations  ;  to  turn 
them  into  verse  has  been  the  occupation  of  men  of 
all  nationalities,  professions,  and  pursuits  at  every 
period  of  history  ;  their  language,  imagery,  and 
ideas  have  fascinated  men  of  the  highest  poetic 
genius.  But  besides  the  indirect  influence  which 
they  have  thus  exercised  on  literature,  the  Psalms 
may  be  said  to  have  created  a  literature  of  their 
own.  Of  all  that  mass  of  writings  in  which  is 
recorded  the  inner  life  of  Christians,  they  are  the 
precursors  and  the  pattern.  They  are  the  parents 
of  those  religious  autobiographies  which,  even  in 
hterary  and  psychological  interest,  rival,  if  they  do 
not  surpass,  the  Confessions  of  Rousseau,  or  the 
Truth  and  Fiction  of  Goethe.  From  the  Psalms  are 
descended  books  like  the  Confessions  of  St .  Augustine, 
the  Imitation  of  Christ  of  Thomas  a  Kempis,  the 
Grace  Abounding  of  John  Bunyan,  the  Devotions  of 
Bishop  Andrewes,  the  Thoughts  of  Blaise  Pascal. 

In  the  pages  of  such  works  the  tone  and  spirit  of 
the  Psalms  are  faithfully  represented  ;  whether  in 
devotional  exercises,  in  guides  to  the  spiritual  life, 
in  meditations  and  counsels  on  holy  living  and  holy 
dying,  or  in  the  unconscious  records  of  the  personal 
history  of  religious  minds,  their  influence  is  ever^^- 
wherc  present.  They  are  the  inspiration  of  that 
soliloquy  at  the  throne  of  God,  in  which  Augustine 
revealed  his  soul  before  a  world  which  is  yet 
listening,  as  for  fifteen  centuries  it  has  listened,  to 
the  absolute  truthfulness  of  his  Confessions.  They 
are  the  wings  which  lifted  Thomas  a  Kempis  out  of 
his  white-washed  cell,  bore  him  above  the  flat 
meadows  of  St.  Agnes,  and  floated  heavenwards 
those  mystic  musings  of  the  Imitation  which  thrilled 


IN  RELIGIOUS  AUTOBIOGRAPHIES       9 

with  mingled  awe  and  hope  the  heart  of  Maggie 
TulUver.  They  lent  their  height  and  depth  to  the 
rehgion  of  Bishop  Andrewes,  whose  private  prayers, 
in  their  elevation  above  doctrinal  controversies,  in 
their  manliness  and  reality,  and  in  the  compre- 
hensiveness of  their  horizon,  seem  to  translate,  for 
individual  use  in  the  closet,  the  public  worship  of 
the  Anglican  Church.  They  were  the  live  coal 
which  touched  the  lips  of  John  Bunyan,  and  trans- 
formed the  unlettered  tinker  into  a  genius  and  a 
poet,  as,  with  a  pen  of  iron  and  in  letters  of  fire,  he 
wrote  the  record  of  his  passage  from  death  to  life. 
They  sharpened  the  keen  sight  with  which  Pascal 
pierced  to  the  heart  of  truth,  and  nerved  the  courage 
with  which  he  confronted  the  mysteries  of  the  vision 
that  his  lucid  intellect  conjured  up  before  his  eyes. 
Thus  the  Psalms,  apart  from  their  own  tran- 
scendent beauty  and  universal  truth,  have  enriched 
the  world  by  the  creation  of  a  literature  which, 
century  after  century,  has  not  only  commanded  the 
admiration  of  sceptics,  but  elevated  the  characters 
of  innumerable  believers,  encouraged  their  weariness, 
consoled  their  sorrows,  lifted  their  doubts,  and 
guided  their  wavering  footsteps. 

So  far  I  have  spoken  mainly  of  the  influence  of 
the  Psalms  on  human  thought.  But  their  workings 
in  the  sphere  of  human  action  have  been  equally 
striking  and  equally  universal.  No  fragment  of 
the  glorious  temples  at  Jerusalem  has  survived  the 
lapse  of  time  ;  but  the  imperishable  hymns  of  the 
Jewish  worship  rule  the  hearts  of  men  with  more 
than  their  pristine  power,  and  still  continue  to  in- 
spire and  elevate  the  conduct  and  devotions  of 
successive  generations  of  mankind.  Fathers  of  the 
early  Church,  like  Origen,  Athanasius,  and  Jerome, 
Basil,  Ambrose,  and  Augustine — apostles  of  British 
Christianity,  such  as  Columba,  Cuthbert,  Wilfrid, 
Dunstan,  and  Bede — mediaeval  saints,  like  Bernard, 
Francis  of  Assisi,  or  Thomas  of  Villanova — states- 


10  GENERAL 

men,  like  Ximenes,  Burghley,  and  Gladstone — have 
testified  to  the  universal  truth  and  beauty  of  the 
Psalms.  With  a  psalm  upon  their  lips  died  Wyclif, 
Hus,  and  Jerome  of  Prague,  Luther  and  Melancthon. 
Philosophers,  such  as  Bacon  and  Locke  and  Hamil- 
ton ;  men  of  science,  like  Humboldt  and  Romanes  ; 
among  missionaries,  Xavier,  Martyn,  Duff,  Living- 
stone, Mackay  and  Hannington  ;  explorers,  like 
Columbus  ;  scholars,  like  Casaubon  and  Salmasius  ; 
earthly  potentates,  like  Charlemagne,  Vladimir 
Monomachus,  Hildebrand,  Louis  ix.,  Henry  v., 
Catherine  de  Medicis,  Charles  v.,  Henry  of  Navarre, 
and  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots — have  found  in  the  Psalms 
their  inspiration  in  life,  their  strength  in  peril,  or 
their  support  in  death. 

To  collect  together  some  of  the  countless  instances 
in  which  the  Psalms  have  thus  guided,  controlled, 
and  sustained  the  lives  of  men  and  women  in  all 
ages  of  human  history,  and  at  all  crises  of  their  fate, 
is  the  purpose  of  this  book. 


CHAPTER    I  I 

Early  Ages  of  Christianity 

The  Psalms  in  services,  ceremonies,  and  the  catacombs  ;  use  in 
persecution — Crispin  and  Crispinian,  Theodore  the  Martyr, 
the  Saracen  convert,  the  Emperor  Maurice  ;  in  public  worship  ; 
in  ordinary  life— Origen,  the  family  of  Gregory  Nazianzen, 
Monica  ;  on  deathbeds — Basil  the  Great,  Ambrose,  Paulinus 
of  Nola,  Cyril  of  Alexandria  ;  in  triumph  over  Paganism — the 
Emperor  Julian  at  Antioch  ;  influence  of  the  Psalms  in 
Monasticism — the  Egyptian  Anchorites,  Basil  and  monastic 
communities  of  the  East,  Athanasius  and  the  West,  Jerome 
and  Paula,  Martin  of  Tours  ;  the  Psalms  in  action — struggle 
between  Church  and  State — Athanasius  and  Constantius, 
Basil  and  Valens,  Ambrose  and  Theodosius  ;  the  Psalms  in 
human  thought — Confessions  of  Augustine. 

THOUGH  the  influence  of  the  Psalms  has  been 
confined  to  no  age,  no  nation,  no  class,  and 
no  creed,  there  have  been  special  periods  when  they 
have  spoken  with  peculiar  force.  This  has  been 
particularly  the  case  in  times  of  persecution,  when 
circumstances  gave  to  the  words  an  immediate 
personal  apphcation.  Such  a  period  was  the  in- 
fancy of  Christianity.  Secretly,  under  cover  of 
night,  or  at  early  dawn,  children  cast  out  by  their 
parents,  slaves  oppressed  by  their  masters,  citizens 
suspected  by  their  neighbours,  subjects  proscribed 
by  their  rulers, — all  those  to  whom  the  life,  the  mind, 
the  personality  of  Jesus  had  become  the  beginning 
and  the  end  of  being, — gathered  for  prayer  and 
praise  in  the  catacombs  of  great  cities,  in  workshops, 
or  in  the  upper  rooms  of  retired  houses  on  the  out- 
skirts of  towns.  Of  their  religious  services  the 
Psalms    formed    a    conspicuous    part,    and    special 


12        EARLY  AGES  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Psalms  were  soon  appropriated  to  particular  oc- 
casions, such  as  the  73rd  for  the  morning  and  the 
141st  for  the  evening  worship.  These  little  com- 
panies of  wool-workers,  cobblers,  fullers,  craftsmen, 
and  slaves, — "  the  most  vulgar  and  illiterate  of 
mankind," — with  whom  assembled  a  handful  of 
persons  of  higher  rank,  centurions,  government 
officials,  and  ladies  of  noble  birth,  met  together  in 
danger  of  their  lives.  The  ceremony  which  ad- 
mitted them  into  this  proscribed  and  perilous 
company  found  its  symbol  in  a  psalm.  The  hart 
(Ps.  xlii.  i)  was  the  emblem  of  those  thirsting  souls 
who,  in  the  cooling  streams  of  the  baptismal  font, 
drank  freely  of  the  fountain  of  eternal  life.  Once 
admitted,  they  were  as  "  sheep  appointed  to  be 
slain  "  ;  but  the  Lord  was  their  Shepherd,  and  their 
trust  in  Him,  conquering  their  fears,  still  speaks  in 
the  rude  pictures  on  the  walls  of  subterranean  Rome. 
The  language  of  the  Psalms  was  ever  on  the  lips 
of  those  who,  in  the  early  history  of  Christianity, 
suffered  violent  deaths  for  or  in  the  faith.  A  psalm 
(xxiii.)  was  fitly  chosen  by  Augustine  as  the  hymn 
of  martyrs.  It  was  in  the  words  of  Ps.  cxv.,  verses 
4  and  5,  "  Their  idols  are  silver  and  gold,"  etc.,  that 
Christians  defied  the  imperial  order  to  sacrifice  to 
Caesar,  and  it  was  with  a  psalm  that  they  met  the 
torturer  or  the  executioner.  At  Soissons,  for  in- 
stance, in  the  Diocletian  persecution  of  288,  two 
brothers,  Crispin  and  Crispinian,  afterwards  the 
patrons  of  shoemakers,  suffered  torture  and  death. 
For  love  of  Christianity,  they  had  renounced  the 
honours  of  their  birth,  and  made  shoes  for  the  poor. 
In  their  prolonged  torments  they  were  sustained  by 
the  words  of  Ps.  Ixxix.,  verses  9-10,  "  Help  us,  O 
God  of  our  salvation,for  the  glory  of  thy  Name.  .  .  . 
Wherefore  do  the  heathen  say.  Where  is  now  their 
God  ?  "  Their  bodies,  thrown  into  the  river,  were 
carried  to  the  sea.  The  waves,  so  runs  the  legend, 
for  love  of  the  Blessed  Feet  which  once  had  walked 


4 


THEIR  USE  BY  MARTYRS  13 

upon  them,  wafted  the  mangled  bodies  of  His  martyrs 
to  the  shores  of  Romney  Marsh,  where  the  in- 
habitants received  them  in  joy,  and  built  in  their 
honour  the  church  of  Lydd.  Theodore  the  Martyr, 
the  young  soldier  who  rashly  burned  to  the  ground 
the  temple  of  the  Mother  of  the  Gods  at  Amasea 
in  306,  found  strength  to  endure  the  torture  by 
chanting  Ps.  xxxiv.,  verse  i,  "  I  will  alway  give 
thanks  unto  the  Lord  ;  his  praise  shall  ever  be  in 
my  mouth."  Another  illustration  is  the  story  told 
by  Gregory  of  Decapolis.  A  noble  Saracen,  con- 
verted by  a  vision  of  the  Lamb  of  God,  sought  a 
Christian  teacher,  learnt  the  Psalter  by  heart,  and 
returned  to  his  native  land  to  preach  the  faith  of 
Christ.  But  his  countrymen  refused  his  message, 
and  stoned  him  to  death.  In  his  agony  he  repeated 
Ps.  xiii.,  verse  3,  "  Lighten  my  eyes,  that  I  sleep 
not  in  death."  It  was,  again,  a  psalm  that  en- 
couraged the  Emperor  Maurice  to  bow  to  the  will 
of  God.  During  the  twenty  years  in  which  he  had 
ruled  the  Roman  Empire,  he  had  shown  many  of 
the  virtues  which,  in  582,  marked  him  out  to  succeed 
Tiberius  11.  But  the  army  turned  against  him,  and 
in  602  he  fled,  with  his  wife  and  children,  to  Chalce- 
don,  to  escape  the  fury  of  the  deformed  and  dis- 
figured Phocas.  He  did  not  long  remain  in  safety. 
By  order  of  Phocas,  he  and  his  five  sons  were  seized 
and  executed.  He  was  the  last  to  die.  As,  one 
b}'"  one,  the  boys  were  murdered  before  his  eyes,  the 
father  cried  aloud,  with  each  stroke  of  the  sword, 
"  Righteous  art  thou,  O  Lord,  and  true  is  thy  judge- 
ment "  (Ps.  cxix.  137).  Firm  in  his  adherence  to 
truth,  he  rejected  the  kindly  fraud  of  the  nurse, 
who  gave  her  own  child  to  save  one  of  the  royal 
princes,  and  thus  supplied  to  Corneille  the  plot  of 
Heraclius. 

As  Christianity  spread  and  became  a  power,  the 
Psalms  occupy  a  larger,  and  still  larger,  space. 
Their   use   in   public    worship    varied   in    different 


14        EARLY  AGES  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Churches.  Custom  prescribed  the  portions  that 
should  be  read,  or  sung,  or  expounded  ;  but  they 
formed  the  substance  of  most  of  the  daily  services. 
"  When  other  passages  of  Scripture,"  writes  Am- 
brose, "  are  used  in  church,  the  words  are  drowned 
in  the  noise  of  talking.  But  when  the  Psalter  is 
read,  all  are  dumb."  Still  more  striking  was  their 
use  in  daily  life,  as  an  expression  of  the  feeling  that 
God  was  everywhere  present.  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria, in  his  Stromata  (vii.,  sect.  7),  says,  "  We 
praise  God  as  we  till  our  lands  ;  we  sing  to  Him 
hymns  as  we  are  sailing."  Sidonius  Apollinaris 
describes  how  the  boatmen,  toiling  with  bent  backs 
to  urge  their  laden  barges  against  the  stream,  sang 
psalms  till  the  river-banks  echoed  their  hallelujahs. 
"  Anyone  possessed  of  his  five  wits,"  writes  Ambrose, 
"  should  blush  with  shame  if  he  did  not  begin  the 
day  with  a  psalm,  since  even  the  tiniest  birds  open 
and  close  the  day  with  sweet  songs  of  holy  devotion." 
"  Of  other  Scriptures,"  says  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia, 
"  most  men  know  nothing.  But  the  Psalms  are 
repeated  in  private  houses,  in  streets  and  market- 
places, by  those  who  have  learned  them  by  heart, 
and  feel  the  soothing  power  of  their  divine  melodies." 
When  Paula  and  Eustochium  wrote  from  Bethlehem 
their  famous  letter  to  Marcella,  they  exhort  her  to 
flee  from  the  tumults  and  distractions  of  Rome  to 
the  solitude  of  Christ's  village.  Here,  they  say,  is 
the  quiet  of  country  life,  unbroken  save  by  the 
chanting  of  the  Psalms.  The  ploughman,  leaning 
on  his  plough-handle,  sings  in  them  his  praises  to 
God  ;  the  sweating  reaper  lightens  his  labours  with 
the  chanting  of  the  Psalms  ;  the  vine-dresser,  as  he 
prunes  his  vines,  raises  one  of  the  songs  of  David. 
"  The  Psalms  are  our  poetry,  our  love  songs,  our 
pastorals,  our  implements  of  husbandry."  ^     Well 

*  Haec  sunt  in  hac  provincia  carmina,  ha?,  ut  vulgo  dicitur, 
amatoria;  cantationes,  hie  pastorum  sibilus,  haec  arma  cultural. 
"  Letter  to  Marcella,"  Palestine  Pilgrims'  Text  Society  [12]. 


HOME  LIFE  OF  GREGORY  NAZIANZEN    15 

might  Augustine  apply  to  the  Psalms  themselves  the 
words  of  the  Psalter,  which  St,  Paul  applies  to  the 
Gospel,  "  Their  sound  is  gone  out  into  all  lands,  and 
their  words  into  the  ends  of  the  world  "  (Ps.  xix.  4). 
If  any  records  were  preserved,  it  would  probably 
be  found  that  the  Psalms  profoundly  influenced 
Christian  homes  in  the  early  ages  of  the  Church. 
But  glimpses  of  the  inner  life  of  families  are  as  rare 
as  they  would  be  precious.  In  the  boyhood  of 
Origen,  one  significant  fact  is  recorded  which  proves 
that  the  Psalms  had  their  part  in  the  education  of 
children.  Jerome  says  that  the  boy  learnt  Hebrew 
so  well  that  he  vied  with  his  mother,  who  was 
possibly  of  Jewish  origin,  in  the  singing  of  psalms. 
Better  known,  perhaps,  than  that  of  any  other 
Christian  household,  is  the  domestic  life  of  Gregory 
Nazianzen,  the  poet  of  Eastern  Christendom,  and 
one  of  the  greatest  of  its  orators  and  theologians. 
Gregory's  mother,  Nonna,  a  woman  of  ardent  piety, 
born  of  a  Christian  family,  and  carefully  trained  in 
the  faith,  was  "  a  housewife  after  Solomon's  own 
heart," — so  her  son  describes  her, — "  submissive  to 
her  husband,  yet  not  ashamed  to  be  his  guide  and 
teacher."  It  was  Nonna 's  constant  prayer  that  her 
husband,  Gregory,  should  become  a  convert,  for, 
though  a  man  of  high  character  and  exemplary  life, 
he  was  a  pagan.  A  dream  inspired  by  a  psalm, 
helped  her  to  gain  her  heart's  desire.  Pagan  though 
he  was,  her  husband  seems  to  have  known  the 
Psalms,  for  he  dreamed  that  he  was  singing  the 
words,  "  I  was  glad  when  they  said  unto  me,  We 
will  go  into  the  house  of  the  Lord  "  (Ps.  cxxii.  i). 
The  impression  was  too  deep  to  pass  away  when  he 
awoke.  After  a  short  preparation,  he  was  baptized, 
and  eventually  became,  and  for  forty-five  years 
remained,  Bishop  of  Nazianzus  (329-74).  Gorgonia, 
the  daughter  of  Gregory  and  Nonna,  though  not 
baptized  till  a  short  time  before  her  death,  had  lived 
a  Christian  life.     She  had  long  felt,  says  her  brother, 


i6        EARLY  AGES  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

a  desire  to  "  depart  and  be  with  Jesus."  So  great 
was  the  longing,  that  it  produced  a  presentiment  of 
the  approach  of  her  death,  and  an  anticipation  of 
the  time  when  it  would  take  place.  The  looked- 
for  day  found  her  aged  parents,  her  husband,  and 
her  daughter,  gathered  round  her  bedside.  When 
she  had  taken  her  leave  of  each  in  turn,  the  by- 
standers thought  she  was  already  dead.  But  once 
more  her  lips  were  seen  to  move,  and  the  watchers, 
stooping  over  the  bed,  heard  the  words,  famihar  by 
their  use  as  an  evening  psalm,  and  fitted  to  the  close 
of  her  earthly  day,  "  I  will  lay  me  down  in  peace, 
and  take  my  rest  "  (Ps.  iv.  9).  So  died  Gorgonia. 
The  verse,  it  may  be  added,  was  loved  by  Luther. 
Writing  from  Coburg  to  Ludwig  Seuffel.  he  asked 
him  to  compose  for  him  a  requiem.  From  his  youth, 
he  said,  he  had  always  loved  the  concluding  verses 
of  the  4th  Psalm.  But,  as  he  learned  to  understand 
its  full  meaning,  and  as  he  hourly  prepared  for  death, 
the  last  verse  became  more  and  more  dear  to  him, 
and  he  would  gladly  sing,  and  hear  sung,  those 
soothing  words,  "  Ich  lieg  und  schlafe  ganz  mit 
Frieden." 

Yet  another  instance  is  afforded  by  the  death  of 
Monica,  the  mother  of  St.  Augustine,  whose  patient 
perseverance  in  prayer,  and  reward  in  the  life  of 
her  son,  have  comforted  thousands  of  mothers  in  all 
ages  of  the  world's  history.  On  Easter  Sunday  387,, 
Augustine  had  been  baptized  b}^  Ambrose  at  Milan. 
In  the  summer  he  set  out  to  return  to  Africa  with 
Monica.  At  Ostia  they  paused  to  recruit  from  the 
fatigues  of  their  long  journey,  and  prepare  for  the 
coming  voyage.  Mother  and  son  were  leaning  on 
the  ledge  of  a  window,  which  looked  upon  the  garden 
where  they  lodged.  Alone  together,  away  from  the 
crowd,  God  in  His  secret  ways  having  so  ordered  it, 
they  talked  of  the  eternal  life  of  the  saints,  and  of 
what  sort  it  should  be,  "  panting  with  the  lips  of  our 
souls  for  those  heavenly  streams  of  Thy  fountain, 


AUGUSTINE  AND  MONICA  17 

the  fountain  of  life  which  is  with  Thee."  It  is  the 
moment  chosen  by  Ary  Scheffer  for  his  famous 
picture  : 

"  The  dear  consenting  hands  are  knit, 
And  either  face,  as  there  they  sit, 
Is  lifted  as  to  something  seen 
Beyond  the  blue  serene." 

To  the  mother  it  seemed  that  the  purpose  of  her 
life  was  achieved,  now  that  she  had  seen  her  one 
longing  gratified  and  her  son  baptized  a  Christian. 
Five  or  six  days  later,  while  they  were  still  waiting 
to  embark,  Monica  was  struck  down  by  fever,  and 
died  in  the  fifty-sixth  year  of  her  age.  It  was  in 
the  Psalms  that  Augustine  found  comfort  in  his 
sorrow.  When  the  first  gush  of  weeping  was  over, 
his  friend  Euodius  took  up  the  Psalter,  and  began 
to  sing,  the  whole  household  joining  with  him, 
Psalm  ci., "  My  song  shall  be  of  mercy  and  judgement: 
unto  thee,  O  Lord,  will  I  sing,"  etc. 

Forty-three  years  later,  in  his  own  cit}^  of  Hippo, 
closely  besieged  by  the  Vandals,  Augustine  himself 
died.  "  It  was,"  says  his  biographer,  Possidius,  "  a 
plain  and  barely  furnished  room  in  which  he  lay. 
The  seven  Penitential  Psalms  were,  by  his  orders, 
written  out,  and  placed  where  he  could  see  them 
from  his  bed.  These  he  looked  at  and  read  in  his 
days  of  sickness,  weeping  often  and  sore."  So,  with 
his  eyes  fixed  on  the  Psalms,  Augustine  passed  to 
his  rest,  August  28,  430.  It  was  with  the  words  of 
a  Psalm  upon  his  lips,  "  Into  thy  hands  I  com- 
mend my  spirit  "  (Ps.  xxxi.  6),  that  Basil  the  Great 
breathed  his  last  at  Caesarea,  Januarj^  i,  379,  his 
deathbed  surrounded  by  citizens  who  were  ready  to 
shorten  their  own  lives,  if  so  they  might  lengthen 
the  days  of  their  Bishop.  Great  as  an  organiser, 
a  statesman,  a  theologian,  a  defender  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith,  Ambrose  (340-97)  had  ruled  Milan  for  a 
quarter  of  a  century,  first  as  civil  magistrate,  then 
as   Bishop.     A  resolute  champion  of  ecclesiastical 


1 8        EARLY  AGES  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

authority,heprofoundl3^influenced  the  contemporary 
rulers  of  the  Roman  Empire.  On  his  wisdom  and 
experience  the  Emperor  Gratian  had  rehed,  and  it 
was  on  Ambrose  that  he  called  when  basely 
assassinated  at  Lyons.  In  obejdng  his  spiritual 
disciphne,  his  friend  and  Emperor,  Theodosius  the 
Great,  paid  a  striking  tribute  to  his  pure,  dis- 
interested character.  On  the  night  of  Good  Friday 
397,  this  Father  of  the  Western  Church  lay  dying  at 
Milan.  He  had,  as  is  well  known,  introduced  into 
the  Western  Church  the  antiphonal  method  of 
chanting  the  Psalms  which  was  practised  in  the 
East.  Both  as  a  musician  and  as  a  poet,  he  de- 
serves his  title  of  the  "  Father  of  Church  Song." 
One  of  the  hymns  attributed  to  him,  "  Mediae  noctis 
tempus  est," — the  "  'Tis  the  solemn  midnight  hour  " 
of  Caswall, — is  said  to  be  founded  on  his  paraphrase 
of  Psalm  cxviii.  For  us  it  possesses  the  peculiar 
interest  that  it  is  included  among  the  hymns  used  in 
the  ancient  Celtic  Church  of  Ireland  and  Scotland. 
Almost  his  last  labour  was  a  commentary  on  Ps. 
xliv.  :  "  It  is  painful  to  wait  so  long  for  the  day  when 
mortality  shall  be  swallowed  up  of  Life  ;  but, 
happily,  the  torch  of  the  Word  of  God  does  not  quit 
mine  eyes."  He  died  as  he  reached  verse  23  : 
"  Up,  Lord,  why  sleepest  thou?  awake  and  be  not 
absent  from  us  for  ever."  Paulinus  ^  (353-430> 
poet  and  letter-writer,  renounced  his  wealth,  his 
rank,  his  public  career  for  the  service  of  God,  and, 
living  with  his  wife  as  his  sister,  led  the  monastic 
life  at  Nola  in  Campania,  of  which  place  he  became 
Bishop.  There  he  died.  Henry  Vaughan,  the 
Silurist,  describes  the  manner  of  his  death  in  his 
Primitive  Holiness.  The  hour  of  Vespers  approached, 
when  the  lamps  were  being  lighted  in  the  church 
which  Paulinus  had  built  :  "  When  suddenly  sitting 

^  The  tradition  wliich  attributes  to  Paulinus  the  invention  of 
bells  for  the  use  of  churches  seems  unfounded.  See  Paulin  .  .  . 
luid  seine  Zeit.  Adolf  Buse.     Regensburg,  1856  (vol.  ii.  p.  99). 


PAULINUS  AND  ORIGEN  19 

up  (as  if  hee  had  been  awaked  out  of  his  sleep),  he 
perceived  it  to  be  the  time  of  the  Lucernarium,  or 
Evening-Office,  and  Hfting  up  his  hands  towards 
Heaven,  he  repeated,  with  a  low  voyce,  this  verse 
out  of  the  Psalms,  '  I  have  ordained  a  lantern  for 
mine  Anointed  '  (Ps.  cxxxii.  18),  and  so  passed 
away."  With  the  same  words  on  his  lips,  in  June 
444,  died  Cyril,  Archbishop  of  Alexandria,  whose 
lifelong  struggle  for  the  purity  of  the  Christian  faith 
has  been  overshadowed  by  his  alleged  complicity 
in  the  hideous  crime  of  the  murder  of  Hypatia. 

But  if  we  pass  from  domestic  or  deathbed  scenes 
to  episodes  of  a  more  public  character,  the  recorded 
instances  of  the  influence  of  the  Psalms  are  multi- 
plied. No  figure  in  the  early  history  of  the  Church 
is  more  attractive  than  that  of  Origen  (185-253). 
The  son  of  a  martyr,  the  master  of  disciples  who 
braved  martyrdom,  himself  a  confessor  who  en- 
dured imprisonment  and  the  torture  of  the  chain, 
the  collar  and  the  rack,  he  dominated  the  century 
as  much  by  his  character  as  by  his  genius.  In  his 
childhood,  as  is  told  above,  he  vied  with  his  mother 
in  singing  the  Psalms,  and  his  commentary  upon 
them,  his  notes,  and  his  homilies  bore  witness  to 
their  abiding  influence  on  his  mind.  During  the 
persecution  of  Severus,  his  father,  Leonides,  was 
beheaded,  encouraged  by  Origen,  then  a  lad  of 
seventeen,  to  die  without  thought  of  those  he  left 
behind.  The  lad  himself  was  only  prevented  from 
sharing  his  father's  fate  by  being  imprisoned  in  his 
own  home.  In  after  years,  the  persecutions  which 
he  endured  from  the  State  as  a  Christian  scarcely 
exceeded  those  which,  as  a  heretic,  he  suffered  from 
the  Church.  Yet  friends  were  as  enthusiastic  as 
enemies  were  bitter.  Even  those  who  compared 
him  to  Satan  paid  homage  to  his  gifts  by  admitting 
that,  if  he  had  fallen  from  heaven,  his  fall  was  like 
the  lightning  flash.  Driven  from  Alexandria,  he 
travelled  from  place  to  place,  fascinating  some  by 


20        EARLY  AGES  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

the  splendour  of  his  teaching,  terrifying  others  by 
the  boldness  of  his  speculations.  So  journeying, 
as  the  story  is  told,  he  came  to  Jerusalem.  Some- 
where in  his  wanderings,  even  his  intrepid  spirit  had 
recoiled  from  dread  of  torture.  He  had  consented 
to  sacrifice  to  Caesar  ;  incense  had  been  thrust 
into  his  hand,  which  was  forced  over  the  altar. 
Remorse  overwhelmed  him,  when,  at  Jerusalem, 
he  was  entreated  to  preach.  Taking  the  Psalter  in 
his  hand,  he  prayed,  and,  opening  the  book,  read 
the  words  of  Ps.  1.,  verse  i6,  "  But  unto  the  ungodly 
said  God  :  Why  does  thou  preach  my  laws,  and 
takest  my  covenant  in  thy  mouth  ?  "  He  shut 
the  book,  sat  down  speechless,  and  burst  into  tears, 
"  The  prophet  David  himself  shut  the  door  of  my 
lips,"  was  his  bitter  lament,  as  he  applied  to  his 
apostasy  the  verse  (Ps.  Ixxx.  13),  "  The  wild  boar 
out  of  the  wood  doth  root  it  up  ;  and  the  wild  beasts 
of  the  field  devour  it." 

As  the  fourth  century  dawns,  the  long  struggle 
between  Paganism  and  Christianity  entered  its 
final  stage.  "  The  Death  of  the  Gods  "  is  the  sub- 
ject chosen  by  a  great  Russian  novelist  for  the  first 
romance  in  his  trilogy.  It  is  the  story  of  the 
Emperor  Julian,  styled  the  Apostate  (331-63),  who 
strove  to  revive  the  dying  worship.  Five  miles 
from  Antioch  stood  the  sacred  wood  of  Daphne, 
surrounding  the  temple  of  the  Sun-God,  Apollo. 
At  dawn  on  the  day  of  the  annual  feast,  the  Emperor 
entered  the  wood  alone,  eagerly  hoping  to  find  the 
steps  of  the  shrine  thronged  with  multitudes  of 
youths  and  virgins  clad  in  the  white  robes  that 
symbolised  their  youth  and  purity,  and  the  pre- 
cincts crowded  with  worshippers  and  hecatombs  of 
victims.  Already,  as  he  approached  the  spot,  the 
pillars  and  pediments  of  the  temple  gleamed  white 
through  the  dark  foliage.  Yet  still  no  sound  broke 
the  silence  ;  no  sign  of  human  life  disturbed  the 
solitude.     The   pensive   twilight   beneath   the   im- 


JULIAN  THE  APOSTATE  21 

memorial  laurels  seemed  to  be  charged  with  the 
tender  melancholy  of  the  Sun-God  who  had  loved 
in  vain.  A  feeble  old  man,  tottering  over  the  under- 
growth of  white  hyacinths,  and  bearing  in  his  hands 
a  basket,  stumbled  into  view,  as  he  made  his  way 
towards  the  temple.  From  him  the  wondering 
emperor  learned  that  he  was  the  high-priest  of 
Apollo,  that  he  was  the  sole  survivor  of  the  sacred 
college,  that  in  his  basket  he  bore  a  goose  as  the 
only  victim  for  sacrifice,  that  the  shrine  was 
deserted  by  worshippers,  that  the  sacred  streams 
had  run  dry  in  their  courses,  that  the  famous 
oracle  was  dumb.  Since  the  Christians  had  buried 
in  the  consecrated  wood  of  Daphne  the  relics  of  their 
martyred  Bishop,  Babylas,  the  God  had  departed. 
The  emperor  ordered  the  remains  to  be  disinterred 
and  removed  to  the  Cathedral  of  Antioch.  The 
order  was  obeyed.  But  the  return  of  the  relics 
was  made  an  occasion  for  a  triumph.  The  car  in 
which  they  were  borne  was  followed,  accompanied, 
and  received  by  multitudes  of  Christians,  who 
chanted  their  challenge  to  the  pagan  emperor  in 
the  words  of  Ps.  xcvii.,  verse  7,  "  Confounded  be  all 
they  that  worship  carved  images,  and  that  delight 
in  vain  gods."  That  night,  whether  by  fire  from 
heaven  or  by  the  hands  of  incendiaries,  the  temple 
was  burned  to  the  ground,  and  the  statue  of  Apollo 
consumed,  and  it  was  from  Antioch  that  the  emperor 
marched  to  his  doom  in  Persia. 

On  the  death-agony  of  the  ancient  faith,  still 
enshrined  among  us  by  lingering  superstitions  and  a 
thousand  graceful  fictions  in  art  and  literature, 
history  is  comparatively  silent.  But  its  downfall 
was  marked  by  a  period  of  moral  relaxation  and 
social  corruption,  which  fostered  the  belief  that  it 
was  the  highest  duty  of  a  Christian  to  shun  a 
polluted  world.  It  was  in  Egypt,  "  the  mother  of 
wonders,"  the  parent  of  so  much  of  civilisation  and 
philosophy,  the  half-way  resting-place  through  which 


22        EARLY  AGES  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

not  only  the  merchandise  but  the  wisdom  of  the 
East  reached  the  Roman  Empire,  that  a  new  move- 
ment first  took  shape.  Towards  the  end  of  the 
fourth  century,  it  was  discovered  that  the  Egyptian 
deserts  and  mountains  were  filled  with  Christian 
men,  who  had  fled  from  a  dying  world  in  the  hope 
of  winning  the  life  everlasting.  The  news  spread. 
It  was  carried  by  Athanasius  to  Treves  ;  it  was 
circulated  in  his  Life  of  St.  Anthony  ;  it  was  borne 
by  Hilarion  into  Palestine.  It  spread  to  Rome, 
where  it  appealed  to  much  that  was  best  in  the 
spirit  of  the  age.  The  movement  grew.  It  spread 
irresistibly,  fostered  by  the  reports  of  those  who, 
with  infinite  toil  and  hardship,  had  visited  the  monks 
of  the  desert,  and  brought  back  strange  tales  of  the 
struggles  and  victories  of  these  athletes  of  penitence, 
of  the  miracles  that  they  worked,  or  of  the  marvellous 
powers  that  they  exercised  over  the  brute  creation. 
The  longing  to  flee  away  and  be  at  rest  from  the 
fury  of  persecution,  and  from  the  contamination 
of  the  heathen,  encouraged  the  growing  feeling. 
Solitude  tempted  some  men  as  a  refuge  from  spiritual 
danger  ;  to  others  it  appealed  as  a  bolder  challenge 
to  the  powers  of  evil ;  to  yet  another  class  it  seemed 
to  offer  at  once  a  shelter  from  the  world  and  the 
supreme  test  of  self-denial.  Of  the  ascetic  principle, 
the^most  famous  example  was  Antony  (251-356), 
born  in  the  lifetime  of  Origen,  known  throughout 
civilisation  by  the  pictures  of  Caracci,  Guido,  and 
Salvator,  and  by  the  quaint  legends  that  have 
gathered  round  his  name.  The  influence  which  he 
and  his  followers  exercised  upon  Christendom,  and 
the  impulse  which  they  gave  to  the  monastic  life, 
are  almost  incalculable.  A  psalm  was  at  once  the 
weapon,  the  paean,  and  the  rule,  of  two  of  the  earliest 
leaders  in  the  new  movement. 

Rich,  young,  and  an  orphan,  Antonj^  gave  all  his 
possessions  to  the  poor,  and  devoted  himself  to  the 


ANTONY  IN  THE  DESERT  23 

ascetic  life.  Unlike  the  anchorites  who  had  pre- 
ceded him,  he  retired  to  a  distance  from  his  fellow- 
men.  To  combine  in  himself  the  special  virtues, 
to  which  other  ascetics  had  respectively  attained, 
was  his  constant  effort.  To  be  as  prayerful  as  one, 
as  courteous  as  another,  as  patient  of  vigil  and  fast 
as  a  third — this  was  the  rivalry  on  which  his 
ambitions  were  centred.  There  were  times,  for  he 
was  still  young,  when  his  enthusiasm  failed,  his 
courage  flagged,  and  the  temptations  of  the  world 
and  the  flesh  swept  over  him  with  all  their  storms. 
Yet  still  his  faith  triumphed  over  every  assault. 
The  Psalms  were  the  weapons  with  which  he  met  the 
evil  tendencies  that,  to  his  over-wrought  vision, 
presented  themselves  in  material  and  often  grotesque 
forms.  It  was,  for  example,  with  the  words, 
"  Some  put  their  trust  in  chariots,  and  some  in 
horses  :  but  we  will  remember  the  Name  of  the 
Lord  our  God  "  (Ps.  xx.,  verse  7),  that  he  put  Satan 
to  flight.  It  was  with  a  psalm  that  he  sang  his 
paean  of  victory.  So  sorely  beset  was  he  within  the 
ruined  tower  where  he  lived,  so  vehement  were  the 
sounds  of  the  strife,  that  the  multitude,  which  had 
gathered  to  see  and  hear  him,  believed  that  the  saint 
was  attacked  by  the  people  of  the  country.  Sud- 
denly the  clamour  ceased.  High  and  clear  rose  the 
voice  of  Antony  alone,  as  he  chanted  Ps.  Ixviii.  in 
triumph  at  his  victory  over  his  spiritual  foes. 

Is  Browning's  use  of  the  same  words  an  echo  of 
St.  Antony  ?  As  Giuseppe  Caponsacchi  watches 
by  the  side  of  PompiHa,  hears  her  moaning  in  her 
restless  fevered  dreams,  and  sees  her  wave  away 
some  evil  spirit  that  threatens  her,  he  cries  : 

"  Oh,  if  the  God,  that  only  can,  would  help  ! 
Am  I  his  priest  with  power  to  cast  out  fiends  ? 
'  Let  God  arise  and  all  his  enemies 
Be  scattered  !  '     By  morn,  there  was  peace,  no  sigh 
Out  of  the  deep  sleep."  ^ 

^  The  Rino  and  the  Book,  Giuseppe  Caponsacchi,  1300-4. 


24        EARLY  AGES  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

Among  Antony's  most  distinguished  disciples 
was  Pambo,  Eminent  for  his  austerities,  he  had 
taken  for  his  special  rule  of  life  the  words  of  Ps.  xxxix., 
verse  i,  "  I  said,  I  will  take  heed  to  my  ways,  that 
I  offend  not  in  my  tongue,"  and,  in  his  constant 
effort  to  keep  the  door  of  his  lips,  he  is  said  to  have 
excelled  even  Antony  himself.  Half  in  banter, 
half  in  earnest.  Browning  describes  Pambo  ,^ 
"  arms  crossed,  brow  bent,  thought-immersed," 
from  youth  to  age  pondering  over  the  verse,  and 
finding  in  the  seeming  simplicity  of  the  command 
enough  to  absorb  every  faculty  of  mind  and  body, 
so  long  as  life  endured. 

The  impulse  given  by  Antony  and  propagated  by 
his  great  pupil,  Hilarion,  spread  from  Africa  to 
Asia.  Monastic  communities  multiplied  rapidly, 
and  in  their  religious  services  the  Psalms  held  the 
chief  place.  Of  such  communities  in  Eastern 
Christendom,  Basil  (329-79)  was  the  chief  organiser. 
His  ideal  of  the  religious  life,  more  practical  than 
that  of  the  Egyptian  solitaries,  was,  however,  less 
adapted  to  the  East  than  to  the  West.  Neither 
prayer  nor  psalmody  was  to  intrude  upon  the  hours 
devoted  to  useful  labour.  His  monastic  organisa- 
tions were,  so  to  speak,  anticipations  of  the  Rule  of 
St.  Benedict.  The  secluded  place,  in  which  he 
himself  fixed  his  own  temporary  retreat,  lay  on  the 
banks  of  the  river  Iris,  near  Neo-Caesarea  in  Pontus 
— a  spot  as  beautiful  in  his  eyes  as  "  Calypso's 
Island."  He  describes  the  devotional  exercises 
which  his  communities  of  monks  practised.  While 
it  was  yet  night,  the  brethren  rose,  as  in  the  days  of 
persecution  Christians  had  risen  for  concealment, 
entered  the  house  of  prayer,  and,  after  confession 
to  God,  turned  to  the  singing  of  psalms.  Now, 
divided  two  by  two,  they  answered  each  other  ; 
now,  one  led  the  chant,  the  rest  following.  Thus 
passed  the  night  till  the  day  began  to  dawn.     As 

^  Jocoseria,  Pambo. 


MONASTIC  SPIRIT  IN  ROME  25 

morning  broke,  they  all  in  common,  with  one 
mouth  and  from  one  heart,  lifted  to  the  Lord  the 
Psalm  of  Confession  (Ps,  cxviii.).  As  the  day  began, 
so  it  ended. 

Nor  was  the  fame  of  the  Egyptian  anchorites  con- 
fined to  the  East.  It  crossed  the  sea  to  Europe. 
In  Roman  society,  as  the  fourth  century  advanced, 
two  opposite  tendencies  were  equally  marked.  A 
startling  contrast  was  presented  between  the  un- 
bridled luxury  of  the  Imperial  City  and  its  in- 
clination to  the  solitude  and  severity  of  monastic 
life.  From  340  to  343  Athanasius,  an  exile  and  a 
fugitive,  had  found  a  refuge  at  Rome.  The  spell 
of  his  master-mind,  his  enthusiasm  for  the  monks 
of  the  desert,  the  life  of  Antony,  and  the  presence  of 
two  Egyptian  anchorites,  seized  the  imagination 
of  Roman  patricians.  Slumbering  fire  leaped  into 
flame,  as  Athanasius  revealed  the  grandeur  of 
human  self-abnegation,  and  he  thus  became, 
through  Antony,  the  spiritual  ancestor  of  Western 
monasticism. 

A  few  years  later,  Marcella,  a  young  and  wealthy 
Roman  widow,  who  had,  as  a  child,  heard  from  the 
lips  of  Athanasius  descriptions  of  the  Thebaid  and 
of  Antony,  bade  adieu  to  the  world,  and  made  of 
her  palace  on  the  Aventine  Mount  her  cell,  and  of 
its  garden  her  desert.  Round  her  gathered  a  little 
knot  of  women,  like-minded  with  herself,  who 
devoted  their  lives  to  the  study  of  the  Scriptures, 
psalmody,  prayer,  and  good  works.  That  they 
might  sing  the  Psalms  in  the  native  tongue,  they 
learned  Hebrew  ;  that  they  might  study  the  Gospels, 
they  learned  Greek. 

Among  the  most  illustrious  of  these  women  was 
the  high-born  Paula,  whose  ancestors  were  the 
Scipios  and  the  Gracchi,  and  in  whose  veins  ran  the 
blood  of  the  half-fabulous  rulers  of  Sparta  and  My- 
cene.  She  and  her  daughters,  Blesilla,  Paulina,  and 
Eustochium,  and  her  granddaughter  Paula,  breathe 


26       EARLY  AGES  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

and  speak  and  move  in  the  glowing  pages  of  Jerome. 
To  Paula's  daughter,  Eustochium,  is  addressed  the 
first  code  of  Christian  virginity  ;  to  her  step- 
daughter, Laeta,  is  penned  the  first  treatise  on  the 
Christian  education  of  women. 

Of  the  family  of  Paula,  Jerome  was  at  once  the 
spiritual  guide  and  historian.  Born  in  346,  at 
Stridon  in  Dalmatia,  on  the  southern  slopes  of  the 
Illyrian  Alps,  Jerome  had  studied  at  Rome.  After 
his  baptism  he  had  settled  at  Aquileia,  the  Venice 
of  the  fourth  century,  the  great  seaport  of  the 
Adriatic,  a  city  situated,  as  the  Bordeaux  Itinerary 
shows,  on  the  highway  by  which  pilgrims  travelled 
from  the  West  to  the  Holy  Land.  There  his  en- 
thusiasm for  study  and  his  inclination  towards 
asceticism  grew  stronger  and  stronger.  His  two 
favourite  texts  were,  "  But  his  delight  is  in  the  law 
of  the  Lord  ;  and  in  his  law  will  he  exercise  himself 
day  and  night  "  (Ps.  i.,  verse  2)  ;  and,  "  O  that  I 
had  wings  like  a  dove  !  for  then  would  I  flee  away, 
and  be  at  rest  "(Ps.lv.,  verse  6).  Where,  except  in 
solitude,  could  he  gratify  his  longing  or  follow  the 
law  of  the  Lord  night  and  day  ?  At  last,  as  the 
Egyptian  anchorites  had  fled  from  the  lusts  and 
anarchy  of  the  world  to  find  rest  in  the  silence  and 
discipline  of  the  desert,  so  Jerome  fled  to  the  depths 
of  the  desert  of  Chalcis.  In  382  he  came  to  Rome, 
emaciated  and  weakened  by  the  austerities  of  his 
life,  but  with  his  fiery,  impetuous  spirit  yet  untamed. 
At  Rome,  he  revised  from  the  Septuagint  the  Latin 
version  of  the  Psalms.  There,  too,  he  became  the 
teacher  of  the  devout  ladies  who  assembled  on  the 
Aventine  Mount  at  the  house  of  Marcella. 

In  385  he  left  Rome,  where  he  had  made  many 
friends  and  not  a  few  enemies.  Convinced,  as  he 
says,  that  he  had  tried  in  vain  to  "  sing  the  Lord's 
song  in  a  strange  land  "  (Ps.  cxxxvii.,  verse  4),  he 
embarked  for  Palestine.  After  him  sailed  Paula, 
heartbroken  at  the  death  of  Blesilla,  and  with  Paula 


PAULA  AT  BETHLEHEM  27 

went  her  surviving  unmarried  daughter,  Eus- 
tochium.  They  met  Jerome  at  Antioch,  wandered 
through  Palestine,  visited  the  sohtaries  in  the 
Nitrian  desert,  and  finally  settled  at  Bethlehem. 
There  were  built  a  monastery,  of  which  Jerome 
became  the  head  ;  a  convent,  presided  over  by 
Paula  ;  a  church,  and  a  hospice  for  pilgrims.  At 
Bethlehem  in  his  grotto — his  paradise,  as  he  calls 
it — close  to  the  traditional  site  of  the  Nativity, 
Jerome  laboured  with  persistent,  strenuous  energy 
till  his  death  in  420. 

At  Bethlehem,  in  this  realised  "  City  of  the 
Saints,"  Paula  and  Eustochium  lived  and  died. 
Their  efforts  to  induce  Marcella  to  leave  Rome  and 
join  them  in  the  Holy  Land  had  failed.  In  vain 
Jerome  had  supported  their  appeal  with  a  letter, 
which  closes  with  the  words  of  Ps.  Ixxiii.,  verse  24, 
"  For  ourselves,  who  are  here,"  he  says,  "  we  think 
it  good  to  trust  to  God  for  all,  to  rest  every  hope  on 
Him  ;  that  when  we  exchange  the  poverty  of  this 
world  for  '  the  riches  of  Heaven,'  we  may  be  able 
to  cry  with  David,  '  Whom  have  I  in  heaven  but 
thee  ?  and  there  is  none  upon  earth  that  I  desire 
in  comparison  of  thee.'  "  But  though  Marcella  still 
remained  on  the  Aventine  Mount,  there  gathered  at 
Bethlehem  a  community  of  women,  who  sang  the 
Psalter  through  in  their  daily  services,  and  were 
pledged,  among  other  rules,  to  learn  it  by  heart. 
Gradually  the  strength  of  Paula  failed.  In  403  she 
lay  on  her  deathbed.  Her  daughter  Eustochium 
watched  over  her  with  the  tenderest  care,  praying, 
while  Paula  slept,  that  she  might  depart  from  life 
before  her  mother .  As  her  last  moments  approached , 
the  watchers  heard  Paula  murmur  the  words  of 
those  Psalms  which  were  seldom  far  from  her  lips  : 
"  Oh,  how  amiable  are  thy  dwellings,  thou  Lord  of 
hosts!"  (Ps.  Ixxxiv.  i);  "Lord,  I  have  loved  the 
habitation  of  thy  house  and  the  place  where  thine 
honour  dwelleth  "  (Ps.  xxvi.  8)  ;   "I  had  rather  be 


28        EARLY  AGES  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

a  door-keeper  in  the  house  of  my  God,  than  to  dwell 
in  the  tents  of  ungodliness  "  (Ps.  Ixxxiv.,  verse  ii). 
When  the  last  of  the  verses  was  ended,  she  began 
again  with  the  first.  To  the  end,  with  closed  eyes  and 
faintly  moving  lips,  she  continued  to  repeat  them, 
and  so  passed  away  on  the  26th  of  January  404. 
Round  the  body  gathered  Christian  Palestine. 
Monks  and  nuns  from  monasteries  or  convents, 
hermits  from  their  solitary  cells,  bishops  from  the 
surrounding  dioceses,  the  poor,  the  widowed,  and 
the  orphans,  flocked  to  pay  to  the  dead  their  last 
tribute  of  affection.  Night  and  day,  continuously 
for  three  days,  the  Psalms  were  chanted  round  the 
bier  in  Greek  and  Hebrew,  Latin  and  Syriac.  On 
the  fourth  day,  Paula  was  buried  in  a  rock-hev/n 
grave,  close  to  the  birthplace  of  Our  Lord  and  the 
grotto  where  Jerome  laboured. 

Sixteen  years  later  (420),  died  Jerome  himself. 
In  the  interval  Eustochium  had  died,  but  her  place 
was  taken  by  her  niece,  Paula,  the  granddaughter 
of  the  elder  Paula.  Legend  has  fastened  on  the 
strange  spiritual  romance,  which  linked  with 
Jerome  three  generations  of  a  noble  Roman  family 
as  the  guardians  of  his  life.  In  the  fancy  of 
mediaeval  art,  the  place  of  the  three  women  is  taken 
by  the  lion,  whose  wounded  paw  was  cured  by 
Jerome  in  the  deserts  of  Chalcis,  and  who  in  gratitude 
became  the  healer's  protector  and  faithful  servant. 

Years  before  the  death  of  Jerome,  Martin  of  Tours 
(316-96),  whose  influence  on  French  history  has 
been  accepted  by  the  most  secular  historians,  whose 
fame  not  only  spread  to  the  most  distant  lands,  but 
is  commemorated  in  scores  of  quaint  legends  in 
provincial  France,  had  founded  a  monastery  in 
Gaul.  The  young  soldier,  who  at  Amiens  had 
divided  his  cloak  with  a  naked,  shivering  beggar,  saw 
in  a  dream  Christ  Himself  clad  in  the  halved  gar- 
ment. Accepting  the  dream  as  a  call  to  religion, 
he  was  baptized,  left  the  army,  and  enlisted  under 


MARTIN  OF  TOURS  29 

St.  Hilary,  Bishop  of  Poitiers,  as  a  soldier  of  the 
Cross  of  Christ.  During  his  friend's  exile,  he  himself 
settled  near  Milan  ;  but  on  Hilary's  return  to  Gaul, 
Martin  followed.  In  order  to  be  near  the  Bishop,  and 
also  in  order  to  preach  on  the  great  Roman  road 
from  Poitiers  to  Saintes,  he  built  the  wooden  hut  at 
Liguge,  on  the  river  Clain,  five  miles  from  Hilary's 
see,  which  is  regarded  as  the  earliest  of  French 
monastic  institutions.  By  a  strange  coincidence, 
Rabelais,  twelve  centuries  later,  found  refuge  close 
to  the  Abbey  Church  of  Liguge,  the  cradle  of  that 
system  which,  in  its  decadence,  he  keenly  satirised. 
From  Liguge  the  fame  of  Martin  spread  to  Tours, 
whose  inhabitants  were  eager  to  have  him  for  their 
Bishop.  Enticed  from  his  monastery  by  a  trick, 
Martin  visited  the  city.  Crowds  had  collected  for 
the  election.  The  vast  majority  favoured  Martin; 
a  few,  led  by  a  Bishop  named  Defensor,  objected  to 
the  meanness  of  his  personal  appearance,  his  un- 
kempt hair,  his  squalid  garments.  It  was  by  a 
verse  from  the  Psalms  that  the  election  w^as  decided. 
A  bystander,  opening  the  Psalter  at  hazard,  read 
the  verse,  "  Out  of  the  mouth  of  very  babes  and 
sucklings  hast  thou  ordained  strength,  because  of 
thine  enemies  ;  that  thou  mightest  still  the  enemy, 
and  the  avenger  "  (Ps.  viii.,  verse  2).  In  the  version 
then  in  use,  the  words  are,  "  Ut  destruas  inimicum 
et  defensorem."  The  words  were  hailed  as  an  omen. 
Defensor  and  his  supporters  were  confounded,  and 
Martin  was  consecrated  Bishop  of  Tours  (372). 
Two  miles  from  the  city  he  founded  his  majus 
monasterium,  now  Marmoutier,  which  eclipsed  the 
fame  of  Liguge,  and  became  the  most  celebrated 
of  French  monasteries. 

Thus  in  Africa,  Asia,  and  Europe  a  great  move- 
ment had  begun  which,  every  year,  assumed  larger 
proportions.  In  the  fourth  century,  multitudes  of 
men  and  women,  in  solitary  cells  or  monastic  com- 
munities, sought  a  retreat  from  a  world  of  conflict, 


30       EARLY  AGES  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

change,  and  persecution.  That  this  should  have 
been  the  case  is  not  surprising.  The  time  was  one 
when  the  Te  Deiim  of  victory  alternated  with  the 
Miserere  of  defeat,  when  the  secular  power  first 
accepted  religion  as  its  ally,  then  endeavoured  to 
employ  it  as  a  servant,  and  finally  acknowledged  it 
as  a  master.  Among  the  great  ecclesiastics  of  the 
century  no  names  stand  higher  than  those  of 
Athanasius,  the  impersonation  of  purity  of  faith  ; 
or  of  Basil,  the  upholder  of  order  and  discipline 
in  the  Church  ;  or  of  Ambrose,  the  champion  of 
ecclesiastical  authority.  With  striking  scenes  in  the 
lives  of  each,  the  Psalms  are  inseparably  connected. 

In  October  346,  Athanasius  returned  to  Alex- 
andria from  his  second  exile.  The  people  streamed 
forth  to  meet  him  "  like  another  Nile."  Every 
point  of  vantage  was  crowded  with  eager  spectators. 
The  air,  fragrant  with  the  smoke  of  incense,  and 
bright  with  the  blaze  of  bonfires,  rang  with  cheers 
and  the  clapping  of  hands.  Nearly  nine  years  of 
peace  followed  in  the  troubled  life  of  Athanasius. 
But  the  interlude  was  only  the  lull  which  preceded 
the  storm.  The  Emperor  Constantius  was  in  the 
hands  of  his  Arian  courtiers  ;  a  great  majority  of  the 
Council  of  Milan  (355)  had  condemned  Athanasius  ; 
and  it  became  evident  that  some  violence  would  be 
attempted  against  the  Archbishop  in  his  own  city 
of  Alexandria.  The  Psalms  had  been  his  constant 
study.  His  Exposition  of  the  Psalms,  his  Titles  of 
the  Psalms,  as  well  as  his  frequent  allusions  to  them 
in  his  writings,  prove  how  deep  was  their  hold  upon 
his  mind.  His  favourite  Psalm  was  the  72nd. 
"  Against  all  assaults  upon  thy  body,"  he  says, 
"  thine  estate,  thy  soul,  thy  reputation,  against 
all  temptations,  tribulations,  plots  and  slanderous 
reports,  sa}^  this  Psalm."  So  now,  in  the  hour  of 
his  own  and  his  people's  danger,  he  turned  to  a 
psalm  for  help. 

At    midnight,   on    Thursday,    February  8,   356, 


ATHANASIUS  AGAINST  THE  WORLD      31 

Athanasius  was  holding  a  vigil  in  the  Church  of 
St.Theonas.  The  building  was  thronged  with  wor- 
shippers preparing  for  the  service  of  the  morrow. 
Suddenly  the  church  was  beset  by  soldiers,  and  the 
clash  of  arms  resounded  in  the  precincts.  "  I 
thought  it  not  right/'  says  Athanasius,  "  at  a  time 
of  such  disorder,  to  leave  my  people.  Rather  I 
preferred  to  be  the  first  to  meet  the  danger."  At 
the  extreme  east  end  of  the  church  was  the  Arch- 
bishop's throne.  Sitting  down  upon  it,  Athanasius 
ordered  the  deacon  to  read  Ps.  cxxxvi.,  and  all  the 
people  to  respond  with  ^^  For  his  mercy  endureth  for 
ever,'^  and  then  to  withdraw  to  their  homes.  The 
act  of  faith  was  hardly  finished,  when  the  doors  were 
forced,  and  the  soldiers  rushed  in,  discharging  their 
arrows,  brandishing  their  swords  and  spears  in  the 
dim  light  of  the  building,  as  they  crowded  up  the 
nave.  "  The  clergy  and  the  people,"  continues 
Athanasius,  "  prayed  me  to  escape.  I  refused  to 
move  till  all  were  in  safety.  So  I  stood  up,  called 
for  prayer,  and  bade  the  people  leave.  Many  had 
gone  ;  others  were  trying  to  follow,  when  some  of 
the  monks  and  of  the  clergy  came  to  my  throne  and 
carried  me  away.  So  then  I  passed  through  the 
crowd  of  soldiers  unseen,  and  escaped,  giving  thanks 
to  God  that  I  had  not  betrayed  my  people,  but  had 
secured  their  safety  before  I  thought  of  my  own." 
But  Athanasius  only  describes  that  part  of  the 
scene  which  had  passed  before  his  eyes.  In  the 
buildings  that  surrounded  the  church,  there  were 
fighting  and  slaughter.  The  dawn  of  day  revealed 
lifeless  bodies,  and  blood-stained  steps  and  passages  ; 
and  Alexandria  mourned  not  only  the  disappearance 
of  the  beloved  Archbishop,  but  the  murder  of  many 
of  her  citizens. 

Imperial  tyranny  failed  to  subdue  the  spirit  of 
Athanasius,  who  confronted  the  world  in  order  to 
assert  the  principle  of  the  eternal  Sonship  of  his 
Redeemer.     Equally  powerless  was  it  against  Basil, 


32        EARLY  AGES  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

whose  character  inspired  the  genius  of  Hooker,  and 
extorted  the  admiration  of  Gibbon.  How  great  a 
share  the  singing  of  psalms  held  in  the  life  of  his 
monastic  communities,  has  been  already  shown  ; 
and  it  was  in  part  the  awe  that  the  sound  of  chanting 
inspired  w^hich  saved  him  from  the  violence  of  Valens. 
On  the  Feast  of  the  Epiphany  372,  the  emperor, 
surrounded  by  his  guards,  entered  the  chief  church 
of  Caesarea.  At  the  eastern  end  of  the  nave,  behind 
the  altar,  stood  Basil,  supported  by  his  clergy. 
Tall,  erect,  his  clear-cut  features  sharpened  by  his 
austerities,  his  bright  eyes  gleaming  under  his  arched 
eyebrows,  he  faced  the  intruders  with  silent  dignity. 
The  emperor's  presence  was  ignored.  The  service 
proceeded  with  the  order  and  reverence  which  Basil 
had  introduced.  As  the  crowd  of  worshippers,  who 
filled  the  building  "  with  a  sea  of  peop)le,"  continued 
to  chant  the  Psalms  with  an  imposing  volume  of 
sound,  the  weak,  excitable  Valens  almost  fainted 
before  the  impression  which  the  scene  and  sound 
created.  The  mind  of  the  Arian  despot  was  over- 
awed, his  eyes  were  dimmed,  his  nerves  shaken,  by 
the  manifestation  of  a  Divine  Kingdom  which  was 
entirely  regardless  of  his  power.  He  abandoned  the 
thought  of  violence,  returned  in  peace,  and,  for  a 
time,  Basil  reasserted  over  him  the  influence  of  his 
character. 

Before  the  intrepidity  of  an  Athanasius  and  a 
Basil,  Constantius  and  Valens  had  recoiled.  But 
though  emperors  had  failed  to  subdue  the  spirit 
which  great  ecclesiastics  represented,  they  had  not 
acknowledged  the  supremacy  of  religion  in  the 
domain  of  conscience.  That  acknowledgment  was 
made  by  Theodosius  in  the  Cathedral  of  Milan,  and 
in  the  words  of  a  psalm  his  confession  was  clothed. 

In  390,  a  well-known  and  popular  charioteer  had 
been  imprisoned  by  the  Gothic  governor  of  Thessa- 
lonica.  The  populace,  careless  whether  the  sen- 
tence was  just  or  unjust,  clamoured  for  the  release 


AMBROSE  AND  THEODOSIUS  33 

of  their  favourite.  Their  demand  was  refused,  and 
a  tumult  arose,  in  which  the  governor  and  several 
of  the  magistrates  were  killed.  Theodosius  was 
determined  that  the  punishment  of  the  Thessa- 
lonians  should  be  signal.  The  secret  was  well  kept. 
The  officials  of  the  city  summoned  the  inhabitants 
to  the  circus,  as  though  they  were  to  witness  an 
ordinary  spectacle ;  but,  as  soon  as  they  were 
assembled  m  the  arena,  armed  soldiers  surrounded 
the  place,  and  put  to  the  sword  every  living  being, 
man,  woman,  or  child,  who  fell  into  their  hands.  In 
the  massacre,  seven  thousand  persons  are  said  to 
have  perished. 

Horrified  at  the  news,  Ambrose,  Bishop  of  Milan, 
wrote  to  the  Emperor  Theodosius,  urging  him  to 
throw  himself  as  a  penitent  on  the  mercy  of  God. 
"  Sin,"  he  pleaded,  "  is  effaced  neither  by  tears  nor 
by  penitence  :  neither  angel  nor  archangel  can 
remove  its  stain  ;  God,  and  God  only,  can  take 
away  sin.  You  have  imitated  David  in  your  crime  ; 
imitate  him  also  in  your  repentance."  For  eight 
months  Theodosius  refused,  and  for  eight  months 
he  was  interdicted  from  the  consolations  of  religion. 
At  last  he  yielded.  Conscience  conquered  pride, 
and  he  submitted  to  receive  his  sentence  and  his 
pardon  from  the  Church.  Prostrate  on  the  floor 
of  the  Cathedral  of  Milan,  with  tears  and  lamen- 
tations, the  emperor  prayed  in  the  words  of  the 
psalm  (Ps.  cxix.,  verse  25),  "  My  soul  cleaveth  to 
the  dust  ;  O  quicken  thou  me,  according  to  thy 
word."  The  spiritual  victory  was  complete,  and 
its  effect  on  the  popular  mind  was  deep  and  lasting. 
The  new  relations  between  the  Church  and  the 
Empire  were  summed  up  by  Ambrose  in  the  trench- 
ant phrase,  "  The  Church  is  not  in  the  Empire,  but 
the  Emperor  is  in  the  Church."  The  words  were 
used  of  the  religious  sphere  ;  but  they  might  have 
been  the  text,  on  which  the  political  and  spiritual 
despots  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  the  bold  commen- 


34        EARLY  AGES  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

tators,  and  to  which  the  actions  of  a  Gregory  vii. 
or  an  Innocent  iii.  form  only  the  exaggerated  con- 
clusions. 

In  the  sphere  of  human  action,  the  power  of  the 
Psalms  was  great  ;  but  in  the  domain  of  thought,  it 
would  be  probably  found,  if  evidence  could  be 
traced,  that  their  sway  was  equally  universal.  Take, 
for  example,  such  a  religious  autobiography  as  the 
Confessions  of  St.  Augustine,  and  through  the  first 
nine  books,  which  end  with  the  death  of  Monica, 
follow  the  influence  of  the  Psalms.  From  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Confessions,  opening,  as  they  do,  with 
the  quotations,  "  Great  is  the  Lord,  and  marvellous  ; 
worthy  to  be  praised,"  "  Great  is  our  Lord,  and 
great  is  his  power  ;  yea,  and  his  wisdom  is  infinite  " 
(Ps.  cxlv.,  verse  3,  and  cxlvii.,  verse  5),  down  to  the 
"  Prayer  for  his  dead  mother,"  with  which  the 
ninth  book  closes,  there  is  scarcely  a  page  without 
a  reference  to  the  same  source. 

"  With  my  mother's  milk,"  so  says  Augustine  of 
himself,  "  I  sucked  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ." 
Through  all  the  wild  excesses  of  his  youth,  the 
ambitions  and  intellectual  wanderings  of  after  life, 
the  religious  impressions  of  infancy  remain  distinct. 
His  soul  "  longed  after  God  "  ;  it  was  "  athirst  " 
for  Him.  He  never  lost  that  passionate  desire  to 
know  the  living  God,  which  bursts  from  his  lips  in 
the  opening  passage  of  the  Confessions  :  "  Thou 
madest  man  for  Thyself,  and  the  heart  knows  no 
repose  till  it  rests  in  Thee." 

Ever  craving  for  something  ideal  and  enduring, 
haunted  by  the  solitude  of  his  own  mind,  he  obeyed 
the  wild  impulses  of  youth,  pursued  delights  that 
appealed  to  his  artistic  or  sensuous  nature,  sought 
distractions  in  objects  pleasing  to  the  eye,  in  games, 
theatres,  or  music,  or  in  the  indulgence  of  animal 
passion.  Yet,  tortured  by  reproaches  of  conscience, 
he  reaped  no  harvest  of  repose  ;  he  only  gleaned  self- 
loathing.     Ambitious  of  worldly  fame,  he  pursued 


CONFESSIONS  OF  AUGUSTINE  35 

with  eagerness  his  studies  of  Hterature,  of  rhetoric, 
of  the  sciences.  Still  restless,  he  turned  to  higher 
and  better  things.  The  Hortensius  of  Cicero 
inflamed  him  with  a  passion  for  wisdom,  "  for  Wis- 
dom alone,  as  she  might  reveal  herself."  Yet, 
even  under  the  mastery  of  this  longing,  he  "  turned 
to  flee  back  from  the  things  of  earth  to  God." 

In  his  eager  quest  for  wisdom  and  truth,  he  sought 
them  among  the  Manichees,  who  claimed  the 
possession  of  rational  knowledge,  and  derided  the 
Christians  for  their  blind  belief.  For  nine  years 
Augustine  wandered  in  the  mazes  of  their  specula- 
tions, his  intellect  subdued  by  their  subtleties,  his 
imagination  charmed  by  their  symbolical  interpre- 
tations of  nature.  Here,  too,  he  found  no  abiding 
happiness  ;  his  faith  in  their  system  was  gradually 
undermined.  When,  in  384  a.d.,  he  came  to  Milan 
as  a  teacher  of  rhetoric,  he  came  embittered  by  a 
sense  of  deception,  inclined  to  general  scepticism, 
yet  still  asking  of  his  soul  the  reason  of  its  sadness 
and  disquietude. 

At  Milan,  Augustine  fell  under  the  influence  of 
Ambrose.  He  loved  the  man,  was  charmed  by  his 
eloquence,  and  through  his  preaching  learned  to 
study  the  Old  Testament.  He  was  standing  at  the 
gate  of  the  sanctuary ;  but  a  hard  struggle  was  to 
be  faced  before  he  crossed  the  threshold.  His 
mother  Monica  was  now  at  his  side.  She  had 
crossed  the  sea  from  Carthage  to  be  with  her  beloved 
son,  and  her  prayerful  confidence  in  his  ultimate 
triumph  over  doubt  could  not  fail  to  influence  his 
mind.  Slowly  the  conviction  came  to  him  that  the 
peace  of  God  w^as  not  to  be  won  by  the  mind  alone. 
The  lofty  idealism  of  Plato  turned  his  thoughts  up- 
ward and  inward  ;  but  it  brought  him  no  moral 
strength  to  raise  himself  from  the  earth.  Then  he 
gave  himself  to  the  study  of  the  Bible,  and  especially 
to  the  study  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles.  Here  he  learned 
the  source  of  that  power  which  enables  men  to  em- 


36        EARLY  AGES  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

body  high  ideals  in  daily  practice.  In  the  pages  of 
the  Platonic  writers  he  finds,  as  he  says,  no  trace 
of  the  "  humble  and  contrite  heart,"  no  "  sacrifice 
of  the  broken  spirit  "  (Ps.  li.  17).  No  one  sings 
there,  "  Truly  my  soul  waiteth  upon  God  ;  from 
him  Cometh  my  salvation  :  he  only  is  my  rock  and 
my  salvation  ;  he  is  my  strong  tower  ;  I  shall  not 
be  greatly  moved  "  (Ps.  Ixii.,  verses  1,2).  "  It  is 
one  thing,"  he  continues,  "  to  see  afar  off,  from  some 
tree-clad  height,  the  fatherland  of  peace,  yet  to  find 
no  path  thither,  and,  struggling  vainly  towards  it, 
to  wander  this  way  and  that  among  wilds  beset  by 
the  ambushments  of  lurking  runagates,  with  their 
prince,  the  lion  and  the  dragon  (Ps.  xci.,  verse  13). 
It  is  another  thing  to  tread  securely  on  a  high  road 
that  leads  directly  thither,  built  by  the  hand  of  the 
Heavenly  Emperor,  whereon  no  deserters  from  the 
celestial  host  he  in  wait  to  rob  the  traveller,  for  they 
shun  it  as  a  torment." 

His  struggle  grew  in  intensity  till  it  became  an 
agony.  The  flesh  lusted  against  the  spirit  ;  the 
law  in  his  members  warred  against  the  law  of  his 
mind,  and  held  him  captive.  But  the  supreme  crisis 
was  not  far  distant.  It  came  in  September  386, 
in  the  thirty-third  year  of  his  age.  He  had  thrown 
himself  down  in  a  retired  corner  of  his  garden  at 
Milan,  and  there,  under  the  shade  of  a  fig-tree,  poured 
out  a  flood  of  tears.  "  How  long,  O  Lord,  how 
long?  "  he  cried.  "  How  long  wilt  thou  be  angry?" 
O  remember  not  our  old  sins  !  "  (Ps.  Ixxix.,  verses 
5,8).  As  he  prayed,  he  seemed  to  hear  the  voice  of 
some  boy  or  girl — which  he  knew  not — repeating  in 
a  kind  of  chant,  the  words,  Tolle,  lege  !  Tolle,  lege  ! 
"  Take  and  read  !  take  and  read  1  "  "I  checked," 
he  says,  "  the  torrent  of  my  tears,  and  raised  myself 
to  my  feet,  for  I  received  the  words  as  nothing  less 
than  a  Divine  command  to  open  the  Bible,  and  read 
the  first  passage  on  which  my  eyes  lighted."  Was 
not  Antony,  of  whose  life  he  had  recently  heard, 


BAPTISM  OF  AUGUSTINE  37 

converted  by  a  similar  oracle  of  God  ?  Running  to 
the  spot  where  he  had  left  his  Bible,  he  snatched  it 
up,  opened  its  pages,  and  read  the  words  :  "  Not  in 
rioting  and  drunkenness,  not  in  chambering  and 
wantonness,  not  in  strife  and  envying.  But  put  ye 
on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  make  not  provision 
for  the  flesh  to  fulfil  the  lusts  thereof."  The  shadows 
of  doubt  were  dispersed  ;  the  light  of  peace  irradiated 
his  heart  ;  as  he  finished  the  sentence,  he  had  neither 
desire  nor  need  to  read  further. 

The  passage,  as  he  read  it  in  the  ascetic  spirit  of 
the  age,  told  him  not  only  to  renounce  his  wild  Ufe, 
but  to  forgo  his  marriage,  abandon  the  pursuits  and 
honours  of  the  world,  and  dedicate  himself  wholly 
to  the  service  of  Christ.  The  vintage  holidays  were 
at  hand.  As  soon  as  they  began,  he  resigned  his 
office  as  a  teacher  of  rhetoric,  and  withdrew  to  the 
hills  above  Milan  to  prepare  for  baptism.  There  he 
read  and  reread  the  Psalms,  spending  half  the  night 
in  their  study,  and  finding  in  their  words  the  ex- 
pression of  his  own  deepest  feelings — the  sad  lament 
of  penitence  rising  into  the  triumphant  song  of  praise 
for  the  infinite  mercy  of  God.  "  How,  O  God," 
he  says,  "  did  I  cry  unto  Thee,  as  I  read  the  Psalms 
of  David,  those  hymns  of  faith  and  songs  of  devotion, 
which  fill  the  heart  against  all  swellings  of  pride. 
I  was  still  but  a  novice  in  Thy  true  love,  a  beginner, 
keeping  hofiday  in  a  country  place  with  Alypius,  like 
myself  a  catechumen,  and  with  my  mother — in  garb 
indeed  a  woman,  but  in  faith  a  man,  in  the  tran- 
quillity of  age,  full  of  a  mother's  love  and  Christian 
devotion  !  How  did  I  cry  unto  Thee  in  these  Psalms  ! 
How  did  they  kindle  my  heart  towards  Thee  ! 
How  did  I  burn  to  rehearse  them  all  over  the  world, 
if  so  I  might  abate  the  pride  of  man  !  " 

It  was  especially  the  4th  Psalm  that  worked  upon 
his  mind  :  "  When  I  called  upon  thee,  thou  didst 
hear  me,  O  God  of  my  righteousness  :  thou  hast 
set  me  at  liberty  when  I  was  in  trouble  ;  have  mercy 


38        EARLY  AGES  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

upon  me,  and  hearken  unto  my  prayer  "  (verse  i). 
As  he  read  it,  he  mourned  over  the  Manichees, 
pitying  their  bUnd  rejection  of  the  antidote  which 
might  have  cured  their  madness  : — "  Would  they 
could  have  heard,  without  my  knowing  that  they 
heard,  lest  they  should  have  thought  it  was  on  their 
account  I  spoke,  what  I  cried  as  I  read  these  words  ! 
In  truth  I  could  not  so  have  cried,  had  I  felt  that 
they  were  watching.  Nor,  indeed,  if  I  had  used  the 
very  same  words,  could  they  have  meant  to  them 
what  they  have  meant  to  me,  as  they  poured  from 
my  heart  in  that  soliloquy  which  fell  on  Thine  ears 
alone.  For  I  trembled  with  fear,  and  I  glowed  with 
hope  and  great  joy  in  Thy  mercy,  O  my  Father. 
Yea,  joy  and  hope  and  fear  shone  in  my  eyes  and 
thrilled  in  my  voice,  while  Thy  good  Spirit  turned  to 
us,  and  said,  '  O  ye  sons  of  men,  how  long  will  ye 
blaspheme  mine  honour  ;  and  have  such  pleasure 
in  vanity,  and  seek  after  leasing  ?  '  "  (Ps.  iv.,  verse  2). 
On  Easter  Sunday,  April  24,  387,  Augustine 
was  baptized  by  Ambrose  at  Milan,  and  at  his  bap- 
tism the  43rd  Psalm  was  sung.  Throughout  his 
subsequent  career  his  lifelong  study  of  the  Psalms 
may  be  traced.  It  is  proved  by;  his  two  com- 
mentaries on  the  book  ;  by  his  vision  of  Ps.  cxix., 
rising  like  a  Tree  of  Life  in  Paradise  ;  by  the  in- 
scription of  Ps.  xxxii.  above  his  bed,  that  his  eyes 
might  rest  upon  the  words  at  the  moment  of  waking  ; 
by  the  closing  scene  of  his  life  in  the  bare  room 
within  the  walls  of  beleaguered  Hippo.  As  Gregory 
Nazianzen  began  his  Apologia  against  the  Emperor 
Julian  with  a  quotation  from  Ps.  xlix.  ;  as  Ambrose 
was  moved  to  write  his  treatise  on  the  Duties  of 
the  Clergy,  by  the  patience,  simplicity,  and  con- 
tempt for  riches  which  marked  Ps.  xxxix.  ;  so 
Augustine  chose  for  the  motto  of  his  work  on  "  The 
City  of  God,"  the  words,  "  Very  excellent  things 
are  spoken  of  thee,  thou  city  of  God  "  (Ps.  Ixxxvii., 
verse  2).     That  noble  treatise  (413-26),  written,  as 


THE  EVERLASTING  KINGDOM  39 

it  were,  in  the  glare  of  burning  Rome,  expresses 
with  glowing  eloquence  his  sense  of  the  eternal 
destinies  of  the  City  of  God.  The  same  intense 
conviction  of  everlasting  endurance  amid  decay, 
speaks  in  the  inscription — "  Thy  kingdom  is  an 
everlasting  kingdom  "  (Ps.  cxlv.,  verse  13) — which 
is  written  m  Greek  characters,  unobliterated  by  time 
or  enemies,  above  the  portal  of  the  church  at 
Damascus,  once  a  Christian  cathedral,  but  now,  for 
twelve  centuries,  a  Mohammedan  mosque.  It  is 
again  the  same  conviction,  that  God's  City,  in  the 
midst  of  an  ephemeral  world,  stands  firm  for  ever, 
which  dictates  the  inscription  in  the  Cathedral  of 
St.  Sophia  at  Kieff,  the  oldest  church  in  Russia, 
built  by  Yaroslaf  in  1037.  On  the  mosaics  behind 
the  altar  is  a  colossal  figure  of  the  Virgin,  bearing  the 
inscription,  "  God  is  in  the  midst  of  her,  therefore 
shall  she  not  be  removed  "  (Ps.  xlvi.,  verse  5). 


CHAPTER    I  I  I 
The  Formation  of  Nations 

The  invasions  of  the  barbarians  ;  supremacy  of  moral  power  over 
brute  force  ;  Odoacer  and  Severinus  ;  Totila  and  Benedict  ; 
the  Rule  of  Benedict  ;  monastic  missionaries  ;  translation 
of  the  Psalms  into  Sclavonic  ;  the  Psalms  in  the  lives  of 
Columban,  Gall,  Patrick,  Brendan,  Columba,  Cuthbert  ; 
Irish  and  British  Christianity — Battle  of  Mold,  Kentigem, 
Bangor  ;  Roman  Christianity — the  island  of  Death  and 
Silence  ;  Gregory  the  Great  ;  coming  of  Augustine  ;  intro- 
duction of  Benedictine  Rule  ;  its  foundation  on  the  Psalms  ; 
its  establishment  in  England — Benedict  Biscop,  Wilfrid,  Neot, 
Dunstan  ;    universality  of  the  Rule. 

MEN  needed  all  their  faith  in  the  eternity  of 
"  the  City  of  God  "  during  the  successive 
invasions  which,  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries, 
swept  over  Europe.  The  siege  and  capture  of  Rome 
(410)  by  Alaric  and  his  Arian  Visigoths,  thrilled  the 
civilised  world  with  consternation.  The  news,  as 
has  been  noted,  stirred  Augustine  to  write  his 
De  Civitate  Dei,  with  a  psalm  for  his  motto,  Jerome, 
in  his  cave  at  Bethlehem,  wrestling  with  the  diffi- 
culties of  the  Prophet  Ezekiel,  found  in  a  psalm  the 
best  expression  for  a  horror  which,  as  he  said,  made 
him  forget  his  own  name  :  "  O  God,  the  heathen 
are  come  into  thy  inheritance  ;  thy  holy  temple 
have  they  defiled,  and  made  Jerusalem  an  heap  of 
stones"  (Ps.  Ixxix.),  In  rude  contrast  to  the 
solemnity  of  this  universal  lamentation  was  the 
sensation  of  relief  which,  according  to  the  popular 
story,  the  event  produced  upon  the  Emperor 
Honorius.     "  Rome  has  perished  !  "  cried  the  panic- 

4° 


THE  BARBARIAN  INVASION  41 

stricken  messenger,  as  he  hurried  into  the  emperor's 
presence.  "  Rome  perished  !  "  rephed  the  imperial 
poultry-fancier,  who  had  a  favourite  hen  called 
"  Rome  "  ;  "  impossible  !  an  hour  ago  she  was 
feeding  from  my  hand."  It  was  explained  that  it 
was  the  city  of  Rome  which  had  been  destroyed. 
"  But  I  thought,"  said  the  relieved  emperor,  "  you 
meant  that  it  was  my  bird,  Rome,  which  I  had  lost." 
Alaric  and  his  Arian  followers  spared  Christian 
churches  and  those  who  had  found  refuge  within 
their  walls.  But  what  shelter  was  there  from  the 
savage  glance  of  Attila's  small  bead-like  eyes,  as  his 
squalid  Pannonian  hordes  swept  over  Europe 
(441-51),  leaving  in  their  track  a  blackened  and 
desolated  waste  ?  In  those  terrible  times,  when  the 
Roman  population  of  Europe  was  overwhelmed  by 
successive  waves  of  heathen  or  Arian  invaders, 
civilisation  was  preserved  by  the  men  who  had  fled 
from  its  pleasures  and  allurements  into  solitary 
cells  or  monastic  communities.  The  one  book  which 
they  read  and  meditated  was  the  Bible  ;  the  one 
purpose  for  which  they  lived  was  the  service  of  the 
body  to  the  soul,  the  subjection  of  the  flesh  to  the 
spirit.  Some  of  these  hermits  and  monks  may  have 
glorified  the  means  above  the  end,  or  pushed  their 
purpose  to  such  extremes  that  their  minds  tottered 
on  the  verge  of  insanity.  But  in  the  midst  of 
widespread  ruin,  pitilessly  worked  by  a  fierce  and 
brutal  age,  they  stood  for  humanity,  for  justice,  for 
purity,  for  faith  in  God.  The  moral  power  of  these 
unarmed  men  impressed  even  the  savage  conquerors, 
and  a  panic-stricken  world  saw  that  the  weapons  of 
the  Christian  faith  alone  availed  against  the  hosts  of 
evil.  Priests  were  not  indeed  always  spared.  In 
407,  Nicasius,  eleventh  Bishop  of  Rheims,  was  cut 
down  by  a  Vandal,  as  he  stood  on  the  threshold  of 
the  church,  chanting  the  words,  "  Quicken  thou  me 
according  to  thy  word  "  (Ps.  cxix.,  verse  25). 
Paris   may   have   owed   security   to   insignificance 


42         THE  FORMATION  OF  NATIONS 

rather  than  to  the  prayers  of  St.  Genevieve.  But 
there  is  better  evidence  to  prove  that  Orleans  was 
saved  by  St.  Aignan,  Troyes  by  St.  Loup,  and  Rome 
by  St.  Leo.  Divine  interpositions  on  behalf  of  the 
Church  and  her  saints  were  magnified  by  the  legends 
which  clustered  round  the  name  of  Attila,  the 
Flagellmn  Dei  {"  Scourge  of  God  ")  of  theologians, 
the  "  Etzel  "  of  the  Niebelnngen  Lied.  The  inroads 
of  the  Huns  stimulated  the  spread  of  Christianity, 
for  the  barbarian  was  awed  by  the  priest  alone,  and 
the  instruments  of  God's  wrath  trembled  only 
before  the  agents  of  His  mercy.  It  was  then  that 
Paganism  lost  its  hold  on  the  Imperial  City,  when 
Pope  Leo  refuted  the  plea  that  Rome  owed  her  down- 
fall to  desertion  of  her  ancient  gods.  It  was  then 
also  that  the  foundations  of  the  Papal  Empire  were 
firmly  laid,  when  the  successor  of  Peter  triumphed 
where  the  successor  of  Caesar  had  ignominiously 
failed. 

But  among  the  barbarians  and  the  native  races, 
the  sense  of  awe  in  the  presence  of  the  super- 
natural was  thus  deepened  by  the  events  of  the  in- 
vasion. Living  examples  of  Christian  charity,  like 
Deo  Gratias,  Bishop  of  Carthage,  or  Cesarius,  Bishop 
of  Aries,  who  spent  their  substance  in  the  redemption 
of  captives,  passed  the  comprehension,  yet  com- 
manded the  respect,  of  the  invaders.  Trusted 
mediators,  like  Epiphanius,  Bishop  of  Pa  via,  won 
their  confidence.  An  Odoacer  bowed  before  the 
spiritual  insight  of  Severinus  of  Noricum,  the 
mysterious  prophet  and  apostle  of  Austria.  A 
Totila — as  the  story  is  told  in  Spinello's  frescoes  in 
San  Miniato  at  Florence — paid  homage  to  the 
saintly  character  of  Benedict  of  Nursia. 

The  story  of  Severinus,  which  in  substance  is 
undoubtedly  true,  even  as  told  by  an  adoring  monk, 
brings  into  striking  relief  the  ascendency  of  moral 
strength.     Austria  was  the  highway  along  which  the 


SEVERINUS  AND  ODOACER  43 

stream  of  barbarians  poured  into  Western  Europe. 
Attila  was  dead,  the  kingdom  of  the  Huns  broken 
up,  Central  Europe  a  welter  of  confusion  and 
anarchy.  Cowering  in  the  extremity  of  terror  and 
misery,  the  Roman  provincials  along  the  Danube 
crept  from  their  walled  towers  to  plough  and  sow, 
or  pasture  their  sheep  and  cattle,  not  knowing,  from 
hour  to  hour,  by  what  wild  band  of  German  horse- 
men their  crops  would  be  reaped,  or  their  flocks 
and  herds  swept  away,  or  they  themselves  carried 
off  into  slavery.  Among  them,  about  455-60, 
suddenly  appeared  a  man  of  God.  He  told  them 
that  his  name  was  Severinus.  But  whence  he  came 
they  knew  not,  though  his  manners  and  appear- 
ance betrayed  his  high  birth,  and  his  speech  sug- 
gested Roman  Africa  as  the  countr}^  of  his  origin .  He 
had  come,  because  he  believed  that  the  people 
needed  him  and  that  God  had  sent  him  to  their  aid. 
Near  Vienna  he  built  himself  a  cell,  and  there,  for 
a  quarter  of  a  century,  he  fasted,  and  prayed,  and 
laboured,  winning  the  friendship  of  barbarian  chiefs, 
redeeming  captives  from  slavery,  feeding  the  hungry, 
clothing  the  naked  fugitives,  restoring  exiles  to  their 
homes  and  families.  Over  the  wild  tribe  of  the 
Rugii,  who  dominated  the  surrounding  country, 
and  over  two  generations  of  their  rulers,  he  gained  a 
marvellous  power.  His  fame  spread  far  and  wide  ; 
it  extended  from  the  Christian  natives  to  the  in- 
vading heathen.  To  his  low-roofed  cell  came  the 
young  Odoacer,  clad  in  ragged  sheepskins,  and 
stooping  his  gigantic  frame,  as  he  implored  the 
Saint's  blessing  on  the  eve  of  his  expedition  into 
Italy,  of  which  he  was  destined  to  become  the  first 
German  king.  Yet  Severinus  must  have  always 
felt  that  his  labours  could  do  no  lasting  good.  He 
had  long  foreseen,  and  foretold,  that  the  Lord  in 
His  good  time  would  bring  forth  the  people  in  safety, 
as  Israel  was  brought  out  of  Egypt.  When  his  life 
wore  itself  out,  and  he  lay  on  his  deathbed,  it  was 


44         THE  FORMATION  OF  NATIONS 

to  this  emigration  that  he  recurred,  entreating  that, 
as  the  children  of  Israel  had  carried  with  them  the 
bones  of  Joseph,  his  remains  might  not  be  left 
behind.  In  his  last  hours,  he  charged  Feva,  the 
King  of  the  Rugii,  and  his  queen  Gisa,  to  protect 
the  innocent,  remembering  the  account  which  they 
must  render  to  God  ;  he  warned  Feva's  brother, 
Frederic,  who  was  entrusted  with  the  government  of 
Vienna,  not  to  touch  the  stores  which  had  been 
gathered  for  the  poor  and  captives,  if  he  would 
escape  God's  wrath  ;  then,  bidding  the  watchers  not 
to  weep  for  him,  but  rather  to  sing  the  Psalm  which 
he  himself  chose  (Ps.  cl.),"  O  praise  God  in  his  holi- 
ness :  ...  let  every  thing  that  hath  breath  praise 
the  Lord,"  he  breathed  his  last.  A  few  months 
passed.  Frederic,  who  had  laid  sacrilegious  hands 
on  the  patrimony  of  the  poor,  was  murdered  by  his 
own  nephew  ;  Feva  and  Gisa  were  carried  off 
captives  to  Rome.  Six  years  later,  Odoacer,  mind- 
ful perhaps  of  his  love  for  Severinus,  carried  away 
the  Danubian  provincials,  and  settled  them  on  the 
wasted,  depopulated  lands  of  Italy.  Their  own 
country  was  left  a  desert  and  a  solitude.  With  the 
departing  people  went  the  corpse  of  Severinus.  The 
waggon  bearing  his  coffin  crossed  the  Alps,  traversed 
Italy  from  north  to  south,  and  finally  halted  at 
Misenum,  near  Naples,  where  the  boy-emperor, 
Romulus  Augustulus,  whom  Odoacer  had  dethroned, 
had  spent  the  last  years  of  his  worthless  life,  had 
died,  and  was  buried.  So  the  body  of  the  bare- 
footed hermit  lay  by  the  side  of  the  last  of  the 
Caesars — the  symbol  of  the  waxing  empire  of  the 
spirit  by  that  of  the  waning  empire  of  the  flesh. 

The  labours  of  Severinus  left  no  permanent  mark. 
It  was  not  so  with  those  of  Benedict.  The  spell 
which  the  Patriarch  of  Western  Monasticism  cast 
over  the  all-conquering  Totila  testifies,  with  silent 
eloquence,  to  the  supremacy  of  moral  power  over 
brute  force,  and  strikes  the  prelude  to  the  illustrious 


BENEDICT  AT  MONTE  CASSINO        45 

life  of  the  Benedictine  Order.  Driven  from  the 
wild  gorges  of  Subiaco  by  the  evil  devices  of  his 
enemies,  Benedict  found  a  retreat  at  Monte  Cassino. 
There  he,  who  had  himself  begun  as  a  hermit,  or- 
ganised the  system  which  in  the  West  superseded 
the  hermit  life.  Among  a  pagan  people  he  es- 
tablished the  capital  of  the  monastic  order.  The 
temple  of  Apollo  was  overthrown  ;  the  sacred  wood 
was  felled,  and  the  faith  of  Christ  preached  to  a 
people  who,  two  centuries  after  Constantine,  and 
m  the  heart  of  Christendom,  still  worshipped  the 
gods  of  ancient  Rome.  Dante  has  told  the  story 
{Paradiso,  canto  xxii.) : 

"  In  old  days, 
That  mountain,  at  whose  side  Cassino  rests, 
Was,  on  its  height,  frequented  by  a  race 
Deceived  and  ill-disposed  ;    and  I  it  was 
Who  thither  carried  first  the  name  of  Him 
Who  brought  the  soul-subliming  truth  to  man. 
And  such  a  speeding  grace  shone  over  me, 
That  from  their  impious  worship  I  reclaimed 
The  dwellers  round  about,  who  with  the  world 
Were  in  delusion  lost." 

"  From  the  heart  of  the  Benedict,  as  from  a  fountain- 
head  of  Paradise,"  flowed  the  monastic  hfe  of  the 
West.  Monte  Cassino  was,  as  it  were,  its  Sinai. 
From  it  issued  the  famous  Rule  of  St.  Benedict 
(528),  the  code  under  which  lived  the  vast  majority 
of  those  who  embraced  the  monastic  disciphne  of 
labour  and  obedience. 

Shortly  before  his  death,  the  great  monastic  law- 
giver saw  in  a  vision,  as  Pope  Gregory  relates,  the 
whole  world  gathered  together  under  one  beam  of 
the  sun.  Five  centuries  later,  it  would  be  true  to 
say  that  the  vision  was  realised  in  the  obedience  of 
the  monastic  world  to  the  Rule  of  Benedict.  But 
for  the  moment  no  uniformity  existed.  Here,  as 
in  Southern  Italy,  prevailed  the  Eastern  Rule  of 
Basil  ;  here,  as  at  Lerins,  the  Egyptian  Rule  of 
Antony  or  of  Macarius  ;  here,  as  in  Spain,  the  Rule 


46         THE  FORMATION  OF  NATIONS 

of  Isidore.  Gradually  the  continent  was  covered 
with  monastic  missionaries,  who  carried  Christianity 
among  the  pagan  provincials  or  heathen  barbarians, 
bridged  the  gap  between  the  old  civilisation  and  the 
new,  and,  in  countries  devastated  by  wars  and  rapine, 
practised  the  arts  of  peace  under  the  sanction  of 
religion.  At  first  the  names  of  saints  and  hermits 
were  exclusively  Latin,  and  their  biographers  in 
nearly  every  case  represent  them  as  born  of  noble 
Roman  parents.  At  a  later  date  the  conquering 
people  had  themselves  learned  from  the  conquered 
races  to  become  hermits  and  saints  and  monks. 
German  or  Celtic  names  appear,  and  supersede  the 
Latin  ones.  In  these  missionary  enterprises  the 
Celtic  saints  were  nobly  distinguished.  Now,  in 
the  spirit  of  Antony  and  the  anchorites  of  the 
Egyptian  deserts,  the  storm-beaten  islands  of  the 
Atlantic  Ocean  were  tenanted  by  eager  solitaries, 
who,  by  day  and  night,  from  year's  end  to  year's  end, 
amid  the  roar  of  the  waves  and  the  wild  screams  of 
sea-birds,  sang  the  Psalms  to  God.  Now,  in  another 
aspect  of  the  same  religious  fervour,  men  left  their 
wattled  chapels,  their  stone  oratories,  and  wooden 
shrines  in  Ireland  and  Scotland,  to  carry  the  Gospel 
message  to  the  heathen.  Columban  at  Luxeuil  and 
Bobbio,  Gall  in  Switzerland,  Cataldus  at  Tarentum, 
Virgilius  at  Salzburg,  Donatus  at  Fiesole,  were  among 
the  Celtic  saints  who  made  their  influence  felt  in 
Western  Europe  from  Iceland  to  Southern  Italy. 

It  was  by  a  text  from  the  Psalms  that  the  first 
translation  of  the  Scriptures  into  a  language  "  under- 
standed  of  the  people  "  was  sanctioned  by  orthodox 
Christianity.  Methodius  and  Cyril  desired  to  con- 
struct an  alphabet,  and  to  translate  portions  of  the 
Bible  into  the  Sclavonic  tongue.  Their  request 
was  referred  to  Pope  John  viii.  in  879,  and  it  was 
justified  in  his  eyes  by  the  words,  "  Let  every  thing 
that  hath  breath  praise  the  Lord  "  (Ps.  cl.,  verse  6). 
In  the  Sclavonic  language,  and  in  the  rude  alphabet, 


THE  PSALMS  IN  MISSION  WORK        47 

which  still  witnesses  to  the  Byzantine  origin  of  the 
Russian  religion  and  hterature,  the  whole  of  the  New 
Testament  was  translated.  From  the  Old  Testa- 
ment the  Book  of  Psalms  alone  was  selected.  No 
one  can  doubt  the  meaning  of  the  choice,  or  that  it 
was  wisely  made.  For  missions,  especially  to  pagan 
peoples,  no  book  is  better  adapted.  In  the  first 
place,  Nature  is  treated  in  its  unity  rather  than  in 
its  detail  ;  it  is  contemplated  in  great  masses  :  it  is 
painted  not  as  self-subsisting  or  glorious  in  its  own 
beauty,  but  as  the  living  expression  of  the  one  God, 
the  embodiment  of  one  overruling  spiritual  power. 
No  book,  again,  appeals  so  strongly  to  the  simple 
elemental  feelings,  the  universal  eternal  emotions  of 
mankind  ;  no  book  relies  less  upon  the  special  forms 
of  human  opinion  to  which  different  ages  and  varying 
circumstances  have  given  their  transitory  mould. 
No  book,  again,  is  so  calculated  to  encourage  that 
sense  of  awe  before  the  Divine  invisible  omni- 
presence which  gives  its  sanction  to  the  voice  of 
conscience.  In  the  poetry  of  Homer,  the  Deities 
of  Olympus  in  three  paces  traverse  the  uttermost 
bounds  of  the  earth  ;  and  to  this  material  omni- 
presence Plato  added  moral  grandeur  by  his  con- 
ception of  the  ubiquitous  supervision  of  Divine 
Providence.  But  the  splendour  of  the  thought,  as 
imagined  by  the  Greek  poet  or  philosopher,  is  only 
a  pale  reflection  of  the  sublimity  of  the  idea  as  it  is 
represented  by  the  Hebrew  Psalmist.  In  Psalm 
cxxxix.  the  beautiful  blossom  bursts  into  the  full 
glory  of  the  flower.  On  its  language  is  modelled  one 
of  the  earliest  fragments  of  missionary  teaching  : 
"  O  Lord,  my  thoughts,"  it  runs,  "  cannot  elude 
Thy  thoughts  ;  Thou  knowest  all  the  ways  by  which 
I  would  escape.  If  I  climb  up  into  heaven.  Thou 
dwellest  there  ;  if  I  go  down  to  hell,  there  also  I  find 
Thy  presence.  If  I  bury  myself  in  the  darkness, 
Thou  findest  me  there.  I  know  that  Thy  night  can 
be  made  clear  as  my  day.     In  the  morning  I  take 


48         THE  FORMATION  OF  NATIONS 

flight  ;  I  flee  to  the  ends  of  the  sea  ;  but  there  is  no 
place  in  which  Thy  hand  reaches  me  not,"  etc. 
The  sentiment  is  that  which  prompted  Linnaeus, 
the  Swedish  naturalist,  to  inscribe  over  the  door  of 
his  lecture-room,  "  Innocui  vivite  :  Numen  adest  " 
("  Live  innocently  ;  God  is  here  ").  It  is  the  same 
also  which,  in  an  utilitarian,  prosaic  age,  is  coldly 
paraphrased  in  Thomson's  "  Hymn  "  : 

"  Should  fate  command  me  to  the  farthest  verge 
Of  the  green  earth,  to  distant  barbarous  climes, 
Rivers  unknown  to  song,   .  .  .   'tis  nought  to  me  ; 
Since  God  is  ever  present,  ever  felt. 
In  the  void  waste  as  in  the  city  full." 

To  learn  the  Psalter  by  heart  was,  in  monastic 
life,  the  first  duty  of  a  novice.  Among  the  secular 
clergy,  knowledge  of  the  Psalter  was  the  threshold 
to  preferment.  A  council  of  the  Church  and  the 
capitularies  of  an  emperor  provided  that  no  one 
should  be  raised  to  any  ecclesiastical  dignity  who 
could  not  recite  the  whole  book.  By  the  Psalms 
were  sustained  the  lives  and  deaths  of  the  men  whose 
spiritual  daring  converted  Europe  to  Christianity. 
Above  the  mists  of  legend,  through  the  pictured  veil 
of  romance,  one  fact  shines  out  with  penetrating, 
steadfast  light.  It  is  the  strength  that,  in  solitude 
or  danger,  missionary  and  monk,  secular  priest  and 
anchorite,  derived  from  the  Psalms  of  David.  The 
words  lived  in  his  mind  ;  they  were  ever  on  his  lips  ; 
in  them,  his  thoughts  were  unconsciously  clothed ; 
in  them,  his  cry  for  help  was  naturally  expressed. 
Take,  for  example,  the  stories,  legend  or  truth,  of 
two  great  continental  missionaries,  the  Celtic  saints 
Columban  and  Gall. 

Like  Francis  of  Assisi,  Columban  wielded  a  mag- 
netic power  over  wild  creatures.  To  many  of  the 
early  solitaries  the  same  power  belonged,  and  it  is 
enshrined  in  a  hundred  graceful  legends.  No  doubt 
it  may  be  partially  explained  by  natural  causes, 
such  as  the  hermit's  habit  of  sitting  in  motionless 


POWER  OVER  WILD  ANIMALS         49 

meditation,  his  freedom  from  anger  or  fear,  his  in- 
stinctive craving  for  some  form  of  companionship  : 

"  He  prayeth  well  who  loveth  v,-ell 
Both  man  and  bird  and  beast  ; 
He  prayeth  best  who  loveth  best 
All  things,  both  great  and  small  ; 
For  the  dear  God  who  loveth  us, 
He  made  and  loveth  all." 

At  Columban's  call  squirrels  leaped  from  the 
trees  to  nestle  in  his  bosom,  or  chase  each  other  in 
the  folds  of  his  white  scapular  ;  birds,  as  he  knelt  in 
prayer,  fluttered  round  him  and  perched  on  his 
uplifted  hands,  or  on  his  Bible  as  it  hung  by  a  strap 
from  his  shoulder  ;  to  him  a  bear  gave  up  its  cave 
for  a  retreat  ;  a  raven  confessed  its  crime,  and  re- 
stored his  stolen  gloves.  With  a  psalm,  he  and  his 
colleague.  Gall,  the  apostle  of  Switzerland,  exorcised 
the  demons  of  Bregenz.  There  the  two  Irish  mis- 
sionaries had  established  {circa  610)  a  little  colony 
of  Christians,  living  by  the  labours  of  their  hands. 
The  Lake  of  Constance  swarmed  with  fish,  and 
Columban  made  the  nets,  which  Gall  cast  into  the 
waters  for  a  draught.  One  night,  as  Gall  watched 
silently  in  his  boat  among  his  nets,  he  heard  the 
demon  of  the  mountains  calling  aloud  to  the  demon 
of  the  waters  : 

"  Arise  I  "  he  cried,  "  help  to  chase  away  the 
strangers  who  have  driven  me  from  my  temples. 
It  willneed  our  united  strength  to  thrust  them  forth." 

"  What  can  we  do  ?  "  asked  the  demon  of  the 
waters.  "  Here  is  one  upon  the  water-side,  whose 
nets  I  have  tried  to  break  ;  yet  have  I  never  suc- 
ceeded. He  prays  always,  and  never  sleeps.  Our 
labour  will  be  but  lost.  We  shall  avail  nothing 
against  him." 

Then  Gall  made  the  sign  of  the  Cross,  and,  hurry- 
ing to  land,  roused  Columban,  who  straightway  tolled 
the  bell  for  midnight  prayers.  Before  the  first 
psalm  was  sung  through,  the  yells  of  the  baffled 


50         THE  FORMATION  OF  NATIONS 

demons  echoed  in  fury  from  the  surrounding  hills, 
grew  faint  in  the  distance,  and  died  away  among 
the  mountains  Hke  the  confused  sounds  of  a  routed 
host. 

Another  incident  in  the  hfe  of  Gall  serves  to 
connect  with  the  Psalms  the  choice  of  the  site  of  one 
of  the  most  famous  monasteries.  Columban  had 
left  Bregenz  (612),  and  Gall  determined  to  seek 
another  home  from  which  to  preach  the  Gospel. 
As  he  wandered  through  a  forest,  he  came  to  a  spot 
where  the  little  river  Steinach,  falling  from  the 
mountain,  hollows  itself  a  bed  in  the  rock.  Here 
Gall,  stumbling  over  a  bramble,  fell.  His  comrades 
strove  to  raise  him  ;  but  he  bade  them  leave  him, 
for  "  This,"  he  cried,  "  shall  be  my  rest  :  here  will 
I  dwell,  for  I  have  a  delight  therein  "  (Ps.  cxxxii., 
verse  15).  So  was  founded  the  great  monastery  of 
St.  Gall,  renowned  for  its  library,  its  learning,  and 
its  cultivation  of  the  arts. 

Comingnearerhome,we  find  that  the  "Confession" 
of  St.  Patrick  is  told  in  words  which  often  recall 
the  language  of  the  Psalms.  The  lonely  boy  of 
sixteen  passed  six  years  in  slavery,  "  with  fear  of 
God  and  trembling,  according  to  the  sa3nng  of  the 
Psalmist,  in  many  watchings  and  prayers."  When, 
years  later,  he  was  ordained  a  Bishop,  he  himself 
recited  the  4th  verse  of  Psalm  ex.  :  "  Thou  art  a 
Priest  for  ever  after  the  order  of  Melchizedek." 
The  Latin  prayer  which  concludes  the  famous  hymn 
known  as  St.  Patrick's  "  Breastplate  "  is  itself  a 
paraphrase  of  Psalm  iii.,  verse  8,  "  Salvation  be- 
longeth  unto  the  Lord  ;  and  thy  blessing  is  upon  thy 
people."     Guarded  with  this  breastplate, 

"  I  bind  unto  myself  this  day 

The  strong  Name  of  the  Trinity, 
By  invocation  of  the  same 

The  Three  in  One  and  One  in  Three,"  ^ 

^  Mrs.  Alexander's  popular  version  of  the  hymn,  written  for 
St.  Patrick's  Day  1889. 


ST.  PATRICK  AND  THE  DRUIDS         51 

St.  Patrick  braved  the  power  of  Paganism  on  the 
hill  of  Tara.  In  the  legendary  history  of  the  en- 
counter a  noble  use  is  made  of  the  verse,  "  Some  put 
their  trust  in  chariots,  and  some  in  horses  ;  but 
we  will  remember  the  Name  of  the  Lord  our  God  " 
(Ps.  XX.,  verse  7).  Every  third  year,  at  the  spring 
equinox,  which  closed  the  Celtic  year,  the  festival 
of  Tara  was  held  on  the  great  plain  of  Breg.  Here 
were  gathered  the  five  kings  of  Ireland,  the  twenty- 
five  tutelary  kings,  their  attendants,  their  warriors, 
and  their  chariots.  In  nine  triple  circles,  as  night  fell, 
they  took  their  places  round  the  huge  flower-strewn 
pyre,  which  rose  on  the  terrace  of  the  palace  of  Tara. 
Throughout  all  Ireland,  every  hearth  was  cold.  The 
people  waited  to  rekindle  their  fires  from  the  sacred 
flame  which  descended  from  heaven  upon  the  pyre. 
Suddenly,  as  the  vast  throng  was  hushed  in 
anxious  expectation,  a  bright  light  shone  out  on  the 
extreme  verge  of  the  plain.  "  Who,"  cried  King 
Laeghaire,  in  his  rage,  "  has  dared  to  commit  this 
sacrilege  ?  "  And  all  the  counsellors,  the  bards, 
the  judges,  and  the  nobles  answered,  "  We  know 
not."  But  the  chief  of  the  Druids  cried  aloud  to 
Laeghaire,  "  O  King,  if  that  distant  flame  be  not 
now  extinguished,  it  will  never  be  put  out.  Before 
it  our  sacred  flame  will  pale,  and  the  man  who  has 
lighted  it  will  destroy  thy  kingdom.  Over  thee  and 
over  us  he  will  bear  rule,  and  he  and  his  successors 
will  reign  for  ever  in  Ireland."  Then  the  king 
ordered  the  Druids  to  seize  the  sacrilegious  wretch, 
and  bring  him  to  Tara.  So  the  Druids,  with  their 
chariots,  their  horses,  and  their  spearmen,  set  forth 
on  their  mission.  They  found  that  the  light  was 
shining  upon  a  little  altar  set  up  in  a  rude  hut  on  the 
hill  of  Slane,  and  before  the  shrine  knelt  white-robed 
men  in  prayer.  They  were  St.  Patrick,  his  twelve 
priests,  and  the  boy,  Benignus,  who  were  cele- 
brating their  midnight  service  to  welcome  the  dawn 
of  Easter  morning. 

5 


52         THE  FORMATION  OF  NATIONS 

The  Druids  dared  not  enter.  Standing  without, 
they  bade  the  men  come  forth.  Patrick  obeyed  the 
summons,  and  followed  the  Druids  to  the  palace  of 
Tara,  chanting  as  he  went,  "  Some  put  their  trust 
in  chariots,  and  some  in  horses  ;  but  we  will  remem- 
ber the  Name  of  the  Lord  our  God."  Before  the 
assembled  hosts  he  spoke  of  the  Kingdom  founded 
by  the  King  of  kings,  and  of  Him  who  reigns  from 
the  Cross.  With  words  of  such  power  did  he  speak, 
that  nature  was  hushed  in  stillness  ;  the  ebbing  tide 
ceased  to  sink  ;  the  branches  stirred  not  in  the  woods  ; 
the  eagle  checked  his  flight  ;  the  white  stag  of  Mulla, 
bending  over  the  stream,  forbore  to  drink.  The 
power  of  the  Druids  was  broken.  As  day  dawned, 
the  magic  circles  were  dispersed,  the  sacred  pyre  was 
cold,  and  the  only  flame  that  shone  through  the 
twilight  was  the  altar-fire  which  the  Christians  had 
kindled  to  hail  the  resurrection  of  their  Lord. 

Yet  another  legend  of  an  Irish  saint  is  steeped  in 
the  language  of  the  Psalms.  Enrolled  among  the 
twelve  apostles  of  Ireland  is  Brendan  (aVca  482-5  77), 
the  founder  of  the  monastery  of  Clonfert  in  the 
county  of  Galway.  But  his  fame  rests  less  on  his 
historical  achievements  than  on  the  world-wide 
popularity  of  his  seven-years  voyage  in  search  of  the 
"  Land  promised  to  the  Saints,"  The  legendary 
history  may  have  been  founded  on  Brendan's  real 
quest  for  the  site  of  a  monastery  among  the  Western 
Isles,  on  vague  reports  of  islands  like  the  Canaries 
and  the  Azores,  on  early  traditions  of  the  voyages  of 
Norsemen  to  the  West  Indies  or  America,  on  Greek 
literature.  Oriental  tales,  and  Scandinavian  sagas. 
In  the  romance  itself,  the  saint  becomes  a  Christian 
Sindbad,andthe  account  of  his  wanderings  a  monkish 
Odyssey — a  True  History  told  by  a  religious  Lucian. 
In  comparison  with  the  mythical  adventures  of  the 
Irish  saint,  the  fabled  wanderings  of  Oriental  or 
Greek  heroes  may  often  seem  human  and  rational. 
Yet  through  the  former  there  breathes  an  incom- 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  BRENDAN  53 

parably  higher  and  nobler  spirit.  It  is  neither  ad- 
venture nor  discovery — still  less  lust  of  conquest — 
which  inspires  the  voyage  of  Brendan  and  his  com- 
panions. It  is  the  inspiration  of  the  hermit,  which 
has  passed  from  the  Egyptian  desert  to  the  shores  of 
the  Atlantic.  It  is  the  determination  to  subject 
the  flesh  to  the  spirit,  the  impulse  to  win  eternal 
life  by  what  may  seem  to  us  a  living  suicide,  the 
craving  to  escape  from  the  temptations  of  the  world, 
the  genius  of  self-sacrifice,  which  conquered  the 
physical  fears  of  a  land-loving  race,  and  studded 
desert  islands  and  sea-washed  rocks  with  the  cells 
of  the  hermit  "  Papas,"  whose  memory  is  still 
enshrined  in  local  nomenclature. 

Brendan  gathered  round  him  his  chosen  com- 
panions, built  a  boat  of  osier,  covered  it  with  hides, 
tanned  red  with  oak-bark,  set  up  a  mast  and  sail, 
provisioned  it  for  forty  days,  and  in  the  name  of  the 
Holy  Trinity  launched  into  the  deep  in  search  of  the 
Land  of  Promise.  One  episode  of  the  voyage,  in 
which  the  unknown  romancer  by  the  tenderness  and 
tragedy  of  his  conception  surpasses  the  more  gro- 
tesque imagination  of  Dante,  has  inspired  poets. 
It  is  the  story  of  Judas  Iscariot,  and  his  respite  on 
the  iceberg,  which  is  the  subject  of  Matthew  Arnold's 
poem  on  St.  Brendan, 

"  Saint  Brandan  sails  the  northern  main  ; 
The  brotherhood  of  saints  are  glad— — " 

and  forms  the  theme  of  Sebastian  Evans's  "Judas 
Iscariot's  Paradise  "  : 

"Mightily  the  North  wind  blew, 
And  North,   ever  North,   the  good  ship  drew, 
With  the  holy  Brandon  and   Brandon's  crew." 

Many  were  the  wanderings  and  adventures  of  the 
saint  and  his  companions.  At  Easter,  they  reached 
the  Island  of  the  Birds,  which,  snow-white  in  colour, 
covered  a  huge  tree  so  thickly  that  its  leaves  and 
branches  were  scarcely  visible.     They  were  the  souls 


54         THE  FORMATION  OF  NATIONS 

of  those  who,  neither  sinning  nor  consenting,  had 
been  predestined  to  fall  in  the  ruin  of  the  Great 
Enemy,  who  for  the  greater  part  of  the  year  wan- 
dered over  the  world  like  other  spirits  of  the  earth 
and  sky,  and  on  holy  days,  taking  the  shape  of  birds, 
met  to  praise  their  Creator.  The^^  told  Brendan 
that  for  seven  years  he  would  pursue  his  search, 
returning  each  year  to  celebrate  Easter,  and  that, 
at  the  end  of  that  time,  he  should  find  his  quest. 
At  eventide  the  birds  clapped  their  wings  together 
with  a  sound  like  the  music  of  silver  bells,  and  with 
one  voice  sang,  "  Thou,  O  God,  art  praised  in  Sion  ; 
and  unto  thee  shall  the  vow  be  performed  in  Jeru- 
salem "  (Ps.  Ixv.,  verse  i).  At  the  third  watch  of  the 
night ,  when  Brendan  wakened  his  monks  with  "  Thou 
shalt  open  my  lips,  O  Lord  "  (Ps.  li.,  verse  i  5),  all  the 
birds  responded  with  "Praise  him,  all  ye  angels  of  his: 
praise  him,  all  his  host  "  (Ps.  cxlviii.,  verse  2).  And 
as  dawn  broke,  they  sang  again,  "  The  splendour  of 
our  Lord  God  is  above  us  "  ;  and  at  the  third  hour, 
"  Sing  psalms  to  our  God,  sing  to  our  King,  sing 
with  understanding  "  ;  and  at  the  sixth  hour,"  The 
Lord  has  shown  us  the  light  of  his  countenance  and 
been  merciful  unto  us  "  (after  Ps.  Ixvii.,  verse  i)  ; 
and  at  the  ninth  hour,  "  Behold,  how  good  and  joy- 
ful a  thing  it  is,  brethren,  to  dwell  together  in  unity  " 
(Ps.  cxxxiii.,  verse  i).  So  in  these  exercises,  by  day 
and  night,  Brendan  and  the  birds  sang  praises  to  God 
till  the  octave  of  Easter  was  passed.  Once  more, 
Brendan  and  his  companions  set  sail  on  their  quest, 
returning  each  year  to  the  island  at  Eastertide. 
Time  would  fail  to  tell  of  all  the  wonders  that  befell 
them.  But  when  the  seventh  Easter  had  come  and 
gone,  sailing  at  Pentecost  from  the  Island  of  Birds, 
they  came  at  the  end  of  forty  days  to  a  wide  belt  of 
darkness.  After  they  had  sailed  through  it  for  the 
space  of  an  hour,  a  great  light  broke  round  them, 
and  their  boat  touched  a  shore,  whereon  they  landed. 
For  many  days  they  wandered  hither  and  thither 


BRENDAN  IN  THE  LAND  OF  PROMISE      55 

among  fruit-trees  and  fountains,  and  no  night  was 
there,  for  the  light  shone  always  hke  an  everlasting 
sun.  So  spacious  was  the  land  that  they  could 
find  no  bounds  to  its  extent,  the  more  so  as  a  great 
river  ran  through  the  midst  of  it  which  they  could 
nowhere  cross.  While  they  pondered  on  what 
might  lie  on  the  farther  side  of  the  river,  a  youth, 
radiant  and  beautiful,  met  them  and  kissed  them, 
calling  each  by  his  name,  and  saying,  "  Blessed  are 
they  that  dwell  in  thy  house  ;  they  will  be  alway 
praising  thee  "  ( Ps .  Ixxxiv . ,  verse  4) .  The  youth  told 
them  that  the  land  which  they  had  reached  was  that 
of  the  Promise  ;  that  it  should  after  many  days 
be  revealed  to  those  that  came  after  them,  and  be- 
come a  refuge  to  Christians  from  persecution.  The 
land  on  the  farther  side  of  the  river,  lighted  by  the 
presence  of  Christ,  would  be,  when  God  had  put  all 
nations  under  His  feet,  manifested  to  the  elect.  So 
Brendan,  taking  of  the  fruits  and  precious  gems  of 
the  land,  as  much  as  his  boat  would  carry,  set  sail 
on  his  homeward  voyage,  pierced  once  more  the 
surrounding  darkness, and  returned  to  his  monastery. 

So,  again,  in  the  career,  both  legendary  and 
historical,  of  Columba,  to  whom,  and  to  whose 
spiritual  posterity.  Northern  Britain  owed  its 
Christianity,  may  be  traced  the  power  of  the  Psalms. 
Born  in  521,  at  Gartan,  in  Donegal,  Columba  died 
in  597.  His  life  thus  spans  the  century  which  pre- 
ceded the  landing  of  Augustine  in  England. 

On  the  stone  of  Lacknacor,  in  Donegal,  Columba 
was  born.  As  the  great  missionary  gave  up  his 
native  land  for  the  love  of  God  and  of  human  souls, 
so  those  who  sleep  a  night  upon  this  stone  are  cured 
from  that  home-sickness  which  is  the  anguish  of 
emigrants.  When  Columba  knew  only  how  to  read 
the  alphabet,  he  was  able,  as  an  old  life  of  the  saint 
records,  to  say  the  Psalms  by  heart.  The  priest, 
Cruithnechan,  who  had  baptized  him,  was  called 
upon  at  an  ecclesiastical  festival  to  recite  the  Psalm 


56         THE  FORMATION  OF  NATIONS 

(ci.),  "  My  song  shall  be  of  merc}^  and  judgement." 
Memory  and  voice  failed  him  ;  but,  in  the  place  of 
his  guardian,  the  child  repeated  the  Psalm,  and  thus 
"  the  names  of  God  and  of  Columba  were  magnified 
by  the  miracle." 

On  the  shores  of  Strangford  Lough,  Columba  be- 
came a  pupil  of  St.  Finnian.  There,  so  legend  tells 
us,  he  copied  his  host's  Psalter  by  stealth,  shutting 
himself  up  by  night  in  the  church  where  the  book 
was  treasured,  and  writing  by  the  light  which 
streamed  from  his  own  hand.  Finnian  claimed  the 
copy  ;  Columba  resisted  the  claim.  The  dispute 
was  referred  to  the  king  at  Tara,  who,  in  homely 
phrase,  gave  his  decision  against  Columba  :  "to 
every  cow  her  calf  "  :  to  the  book  its  copy.  In 
defence  of  his  treasure,  Columba  armed  the  clans, 
and  Diarmid  was  defeated  at  the  bloody  "  Battle  of 
the  Psalter."  Under  the  name  of  Cathac,  or  "  The 
Battler,"  the  O'Donnells,  for  centuries,  carried  to 
their  battles  the  silver  case  containing  Columba 's 
reputed  copy  of  the  Psalter  as  a  pledge  of  victory. 

In  563,  Columba  left  his  beloved  oak  groves  of 
Derry,  and  with  twelve  companions,  drove  his  hide- 
bound coracle  on  the  shores  of  lona,  at  the  spot 
still  known  as  "  the  bay  of  the  osier  bark."  From 
lona  the  "  island  soldier  "  pushed  his  missionary 
enterprises,  for  more  than  thirty  years,  among  the 
Picts  and  Scots,  and  ruled  the  numerous  churches 
which  were  founded  in  Ireland,  Scotland,  and 
Northumbria.  It  was  Psalm  xlv.  that  Columba  was 
chanting,  when  a  body  of  Picts  interrupted  his 
evening  prayers  near  the  mouth  of  the  river  Ness. 
But  his  tremendous  voice  so  amazed  and  terrified 
the  heathens  that  they  fled  from  his  presence,  and 
left  him  undisturbed  in  his  devotions.  In  June 
597  he  had  reached  his  77th  year.  Worn  with 
age  and  labour,  he  knew  that  his  end  was  at  hand. 
He  had  gone  to  bless  a  distant  barn  belonging  to 
the  monastery  of  lona.     As  he  rested  on  his  road 


COLUMBA  AT  lONA  57 

home  by  a  wayside  cross,  on  a  little  hill,  there  came 
to  him  a  white  pack-horse,  which  carried  the  milking 
vessels  from  the  cow-sheds  to  the  monastery.  Lay- 
ing its  head  upon  his  shoulder  with  many  plaintive 
moans,  it  gazed  into  his  face  with  eyes  filled  with 
tears.  The  attendant  would  have  driven  away  the 
faithful  mourner,  but  Columba  forbade  him,  saying, 
"  Let  be  ;  it  so  loveth  me,  that  it  poureth  its  bitter 
grief  into  my  bosom.  Thou,  bemg  a  man,  and 
having  a  rational  soul,  canst  know  nothing  of  my 
departure  hence,  save  that  which  I  myself  have  told 
thee.  But  to  this  brute  beast,  being  devoid  of 
human  reason,  the  Creator  hath  revealed  that  I,  its 
master,  am  about  to  leave  it."  So  saying,  he  blessed 
the  pack-horse,  which  went  sorrowfully  away. 

Returning  to  his  cell,  he  sat  there  transcribing  the 
Psalter.  When  he  came  to  the  loth  verse  of  Ps. 
xxxiv.,  "  The  lions  do  lack,  and  suffer  hunger  ;  but 
they  who  seek  the  Lord  shall  want  no  manner  of 
thing  that  is  good," — he  laid  down  his  pen.  "Here," 
he  said,  "  I  make  an  end  ;  what  follows,  Baithen 
will  write."  As  Adamnanus  comments,  the  last 
verse  was  fit  for  Columba,  who  should  lack  none  of 
the  treasures  of  eternity  ;  and  for  Baithen,  who 
succeeded  him  both  as  a  teacher  and  as  a  writer,  it 
was  fitting  that  he  should  write  the  words  that 
followed,  "  Come,  ye  children,  and  hearken  unto 
me  :  I  will  teach  you  the  fear  of  the  Lord  "  (Ps. 
xxxiv.,  verse  11).  After  vespers,  as  was  his  wont, 
with  the  bare  flag  for  his  couch  and  for  his  pillow  a 
stone,  Columba  passed  the  early  hours  of  the  night. 
As  the  bell  tolled  for  the  nocturnal  office  of  the  morn- 
ing of  Sunday,  June  9,  he  rose,  and  entered  the 
church  before  the  brethren.  Diarmid,  his  faithful 
attendant,  drawing  near  to  the  door,  saw  that  the 
building  was  flooded  with  a  heavenly  light,  which 
disappeared  as  his  foot  touched  the  threshold. 
Greatly  wondering,  he  asked,  "  Where  art  thou,  my 
father  ?  "     Then,  groping  his  way  through  the  dark- 


58         THE  FORMATION  OF  NATIONS 

ness,  he  found  Columba  lying  before  the  altar.  He 
raised  the  saint's  head,  and  sitting  beside  him,  laid 
it  on  his  bosom.  Thus  they  were  found  by  the 
brethren,  and  then,  as  Diarmid  raised  his  master's 
right  hand,  Columba  moved  it  in  sign  of  blessing, 
and  so  passed  away. 

lona  became  for  the  Celtic  races  the  cradle  of 
sacred  knowledge,  the  nursery  of  bishops,  the  re- 
ligious capital  of  Northern  Britain,  the  burying- 
place  of  Its  kings.  "  Where  is  Duncan  ?  "  asks 
Ross  of  Macduff,  and  Macduff  replies  : 

"  Carried  to  Colme-kill  : 
The  sacred  storehouse  of  his  predecessors 
And  guardian  of  thoir  bones."  ^ 

On  certain  evenings,  every  year,  St.  Columba  is 
seen  counting  the  surrounding  islands,  lest  any 
should  have  been  sunk  by  the  power  of  witchcraft  : 

"  As  lona's  saint,  a  giant  form, 
Throned  on  his  towers,  conversing  with  the  storm, 
Counts  every  wave-worn  isle  and  mountain  hoar 
From  Kilda  to  the  green  lerne's  shore." 

Among  the  spiritual  descendants  of  Columba,  none 
is  more  famous  than  Cuthbert.  As  a  shepherd  lad, 
tending  his  flock  by  night  on  the  hills  of  Lammer- 
moor,  he  saw  the  vision  which  determined  his 
vocation.  Suddenly  the  dark  sky  shone  with  a 
broad  tract  of  light,  down  which  descended  a  host  of 
angels,  who  presently  mounted  heavenwards,  bear- 
ing with  them  the  soul  they  had  sought  on  earth. 
Aidan,  Bishop  of  Lindisfarnc,  had  died  that  night 
(651).  Thirteen  years  later,  Cuthbert  was  drawn 
from  Melrose,  and  appointed  prior  of  the  monastery 
of  Lindisfarne,  that  he  might  reform  the  abuses  of 
the  house.  After  twelve  years,  he  withdrew  to  the 
barren  island  of  Fame,  where  he  built  an  anchorite's 
cell. 

Legend  lingers  lovingly  round  his  name.     The  sea- 

^  Macbeth,  Act  II.  scene  iv. 


CUTPIBERT  AT  FARNA  59 

fowl,  whom  he  made  his  companions,  are  called  the 
Birds  of  St.  Cuthbert.  The  little  shells  that  are 
found  on  the  coast  are  known  as  the  Beads  of  St. 
Cuthbert  ;  and  by  night  he  may  still  be  seen,  so 
tradition  tells  us,  fashioning  them,  with  a  stone  for 
his  hammer,  and  a  rock  for  his  anvil  : 

"  But  fain  St.   Hilda's  nuns  would  learn 
If  on  a  rock,  by  Lindisfarne, 
St.  Cuthbert  sits  and  toils  to  frame 
The  seaborn  beads  that  bear  his  name." 

From  his  dear  solitude  he  was  taken,  against  his 
will,  to  be  made  Bishop  of  Lindisfarne  (685).  Two 
years  afterwards,  he  returned  to  his  cell  a  dying 
man.  He  died  March  20,  687,  having  received  the 
Sacrament  at  the  hands  of  Herefrith,  Abbot  of 
Lindisfarne,  who  tells  the  story  of  his  death.  Near 
the  landing-place  of  the  island  was  a  rude  shelter, 
in  which  some  of  the  brethren  had  passed  the  night 
in  prayer  and  chanting.  When  Herefrith  brought 
the  news  of  Cuthbert 's  death,  the  monks  were 
singing  the  60th  Psalm.  By  an  agreed  signal,  the 
light  of  two  torches,  held  aloft,  proclaimed  to  the 
watcher  on  the  mainland  that  the  soul  of  Cuthbert 
had  departed  to  the  Lord.  Hurrying  from  the  tower 
to  bear  the  news  to  those  who  worshipped  in  the 
church,  the  watchman  found  the  assembled  brethren 
singing  the  same  Psalm. 

The  influence  of  Columba  and  his  followers  over- 
ran Scotland  ;  it  crossed  the  borders  into  England  ; 
it  extended  to  the  Midland  Counties.  Along  the 
West,  its  Irish  type  came  into  contact  with  British 
Christianity.  Kentigern,  of  whom  the  story  runs 
that  he  began  the  day  by  reciting  the  Psalter  stand- 
ing breast-high  in  a  running  stream,  was  at  once  the 
beloved  St.  Mungo  of  Glasgow,  and  the  founder  of 
the  monastery  of  Elwy,  in  North  Wales. 

Unlike  the  continental  invasions  which  over- 
whelmed and  submerged  the  native  populations,  the 
invaders  of  Britain  fought  their  way,  step  by  step,  in 


6o         THE  FORMATION  OF  NATIONS 

face  of  stubborn  resistance.  Gradually  the  British 
were  forced  back  into  their  mountain  fastnesses, 
carrying  with  them  the  national  forms  of  their  Chris- 
tian worship,  which  they  jealously  guarded  as  sym- 
bols of  their  independence.  With  fire  and  sword, 
heathen  invaders  swept  away  priests  and  people, 
and  the  wooden  reed-thatched  churches  in  which 
they  worshipped.  So  ruthless  was  the  destruction, 
that  in  it  Bede,  like  Jerome,  or  like  the  historian 
of  the  Vandals  in  Africa,  saw  the  words  of  the 
Psalm  verified  :  "  O  God,  the  heathen  are  come  into 
thine  inheritance,"  etc.  (Ps.  Ixxix.,  verses  1-4). 
It  is  a  period  of  darkness,  with  few  and  uncertain 
glimmerings  of  light.  But  among  the  legendary 
or  historical  records  of  the  persecuted  Church,  the 
Psalms  are  associated  with  one  signal  triumph  of  the 
native  Christians  over  their  heathen  invaders.  In 
429,  Germanus,  Bishop  of  Auxerre,  and  Lupus, 
Bishop  of  Troyes,  were  implored  by  the  Britons  to 
aid  them  against  the  Picts  and  Saxons.  At  Easter- 
tide, so  runs  the  story,  the  little  army  of  newly-made 
Christians,  "  with  the  dew  of  baptism  fresh  upon 
them,"  was  posted  by  Germanus  in  a  defile,  near 
Mold,  in  Flintshire,  close  to  a  spot  still  known  as 
Maes-Garmon,  "  the  field  of  Germanus."  As  the 
heathen  host  approached,  the  Britons,  at  a  signal 
from  the  Bishop,  shouted  three  times  the  Paschal 
AUeluia.i  Caught  up  and  re-echoed  among  the 
hills,  the  sound  struck  terror  into  the  Picts  and 
Saxons.  Throwing  down  their  arms,  they  fled  ; 
and  faith,  unarmed,  won  a  bloodless  victory. 

Among  the  national  institutions  of  British  Chris- 
tianity were  their  colleges,  partly  religious,  partly 
educational,  in  which  the  members  were  numbered 
by  their  thousands .  The  exact  Rule  which  governed 
these  establishments  is  uncertain.  But,  as  in 
Columba's  institutions,  the  object  of  study  was  the 
Scripture,  and  especially  the  Psalms,  so  the  names  of 

^  The  Hallcl  of  Pss.  cxiii.-cxviii.,  or  of  cxxxiv.-cxxxvii. 


THE  COMING  OF  AUGUSTINE  6i 

the  Welsh  colleges  Cor  (choir)  and  Bangor  (high 
choir)  may  show  that  choral  services  were  an  essen- 
tial part  of  their  arrangements.  At  Bangor  Iltyd, 
I  GO  of  the  members  were  engaged  every  hour  in 
chanting,  so  that  without  intermission  psalms  were 
rendered  night  and  day.  At  Elwy,  in  North  Wales, 
365  of  the  brethren  were  devoted,  day  and  night,  to 
the  singing  of  psalms  and  the  divine  offices,  so  that 
the  praise  of  God  from  year's  end  to  year's  end  never 
ceased.  Another  famous  monastic  institution  in 
Wales  was  Llancarvan,  of  which  Cadoc  the  Wise  was 
the  first  abbot  or  principal.  It  was  with  a  psalm 
that  Gwynlliu  the  Warrior,  father  of  Cadoc,  turned 
from  a  life  of  violence  to  the  austerities  of  an 
anchorite.  Won  to  religion  by  the  example  of  his 
son,  the  robber  chieftain  did  penance  for  his  sins, 
chanted  Psalm  xx.,  "  The  Lord  hear  thee  in  the  day 
of  trouble,"  retired  from  the  world,  and  lived  in  such 
sanctity  that  he  is  commemorated  as  St.  Woolos, 
the  patron  saint  of  Newport  in  Monmouthshire. 

In  the  year  of  Columba's  death  (597),  Augustine 
and  his  companions  landed  in  Kent,  to  attempt  the 
conversion  of  Saxon  England.  That  event  brought 
Roman  Christianity  into  collision  and  conflict  with 
the  Irish  and  British  types  :  it  introduced  the 
Benedictine  Rule  as  a  rival  to  the  existing  discipline 
of  Celtic  monasteries  ;  it  carried  England  once  again 
into  the  circle  of  European  life.  How  complete  was 
the  darkness  which,  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries, 
hung  over  England,  may  be  gathered  from  the  ac- 
count given  by  Procopius  (500-65)  of  the  island  of 
Brittia.i  The  island,  he  says,  is  the  Island  of  Silence 
and  the  Dead.  On  the  opposite  coast  of  the  main- 
land live  subjects  of  the  Prankish  kings,  fishermen 
and  husbandmen,  who  hold  their  land  free,  except 
for  one  service.  That  service  is  to  transport  the 
souls  of  the  dead  from  the  mainland  to  the  island 
coast.      At  midnight,  an  unseen  hand   knocks  at 

^  De  Bella  Gotthico,  iv.  20. 


62         THE  FORMATION  OF  NATIONS 

their  doors,  and  the  voice  of  an  unseen  being 
summons  them  to  their  labour.  How  or  why  they 
are  constrained  to  obey,  they  know  not  ;  they  only 
know  that  they  are  so  constrained.  Rising  from 
their  beds,  and  hurrying  to  the  shore,  they  there  find 
boats  that  are  not  their  own,  loaded  to  a  finger's 
breadth  between  the  gunwale  and  the  water  ;  3^et  no 
forms  are  seen,  no  freight  is  visible.  They  push  off ; 
they  bend  to  their  oars  ;  and,  in  one  short  hour,  they 
drive  the  strange  barks  upon  the  shore  of  the  island, 
which,  in  their  own  boats,  with  oars  and  sail,  they 
can  scarcely  reach  in  a  night  and  a  day.  None  are 
seen  to  land,  or  to  leave  the  boats.  But  a  voice 
calls  each  shadow  by  name,  proclaiming  its  earthly 
dignities  and  parentage.  When  the  voice  is  silent, 
the  boats  are  now  so  lightly  laden  that  only  the  keels 
are  covered.  Thus  the  rowers  perform  their  service, 
and  return  to  the  shore  of  the  living. 

To  restore  the  Island  of  Death  and  Silence  to 
Christian  life,  had  been  the  cherished  dream  of  Pope 
Gregory  the  Great,  when  he  was  still  a  humble  monk 
in  the  Benedictine  monastery  of  St.  Andrew,  which 
he  had  founded  in  his  father's  palace  on  the  Coelian 
Hill.  In  the  familiar  story  of  his  conception  of  the 
dream,  the  Psalms  have  their  place.  The  country- 
men of  the  three  angel -faced  Angles,  in  their  remote 
Yorkshire  home,  were  to  be  plucked  from  the  ire  of 
God,  and  taught  to  sing  their  Alleluias  in  the  realm 
of  King  /Ella.  Gregory's  love  of  the  Psalms  is 
illustrated  by  the  picture  of  his  mother  Silvia, 
visible  for  centuries  after  his  death,  which  he  caused 
to  be  painted  on  the  walls  of  what  is  now  the  Church 
of  St.  Gregory  at  Rome.  In  her  left  hand  she  held 
the  Psalter,  open  at  the  words,  "  O  let  my  soul  live, 
and  it  shall  praise  thee  ;  and  thy  judgements  shall 
help  me  "  (Ps.  cxix.,  verse  175).  It  was  with  the 
words  of  a  psalm  that  Gregor}?-  expressed  his  love  of 
the  monastic  seclusion  from  which  he  was  torn,  to 
be  made  Pope  (590).     He  lamented  a  change,  which 


THE  BENEDICTINE  RULE  63 

seemed  to  thrust  him  far  from  the  face  of  God,  and 
back  mto  the  world.  "  I  panted,"  he  writes,  "  for 
the  face  of  God,  not  in  words  only,  but  from  the 
inmost  marrow  of  my  heart,  crying, '  My  heart  hath 
talked  of  thee,  Seek  ye  my  face  :  Thy  face,  Lord, 
will  I  seek  '  "  (Ps.  xxvii.,  verse  9).  But  when  the 
choice  fell  upon  him,  he  seized  the  opportunity  to 
carry  out  the  dream  which,  in  his  own  person,  he 
was  not  permitted  to  fulfil.  As  the  Roman  Senate, 
with  Hannibal  at  the  gates,  sent  forth  its  legions  to 
Spain  and  to  Africa,  so  Gregory,  when  Italy  was 
ravaged  by  invaders,  dispatched  his  missionaries  to 
Britain.  It  was  over  a  country  blackened  by  Lom- 
bard fires,  that  Augustine  passed  as  he  started  on 
his  mission.  In  597  he  landed  in  the  Isle  of  Thanet, 
preceded  by  the  Cross  and  painted  banner,  and 
followed  by  his  companions,  chanting  Psalms  and 
Litanies. 

With  the  landing  of  Augustine,  the  Benedictine 
Rule  was  introduced  into  England,  and  the  religious 
history  of  Saxon  England  is  to  a  great  extent  bound 
up  in  the  progress  of  the  Order. 

"  Hearken,  my  son  !  "  are  the  w^ords  with  which 
begins  the  Rule  of  "  Holy  Benet,"  and  "  Ausculta, 
O  fill  !  "  are  the  words  which  in  Christian  icono- 
graphy are  inscribed  on  the  book  placed  in  the  hands 
of  St.  Benedict.  The  34th  Psalm  (verses  12-15) 
strikes  the  keynote  of  the  Rule.  "  The  Lord,"  says 
Benedict,  "  who  seeketh  His  servant  in  the  midst 
of  the  people,  still  saith  to  him,  '  What  man  is  he 
that  lusteth  to  live,  and  would  fain  see  good  days  ?  ' 
If  at  that  word  thou  answerest,  '  It  is  I,'  then  will 
the  Lord  say  to  thee,  '  If  thou  wouldst  have  life, 
keep  thy  tongue  from  evil,  and  thy  lips  that  they 
speak  no  guile.  Eschew  evil,  and  do  good  ;  seek 
peace,  and  ensue  it.'  And  that  being  done, '  Then 
shall  My  eyes  be  upon  you,  and  My  ears  shall  be 
open  to  your  cry.  And,  even  before  thou  callest 
Me,  I  shall  say  to  thee,  Here  am  I.'  " 


64         THE  FORMATION  OF  NATIONS 

On  the  Psalms  are  based  many  of  the  chapters  of 
the  Benedictine  Rule,  and  in  them  the  book  is  pro- 
fusely quoted.  With  a  psalm,  novices  were  ad- 
mitted into  the  Order.  The  child,  whose  hands 
had  been  wrapped  in  the  white  folds  of  the  altar- 
cloth,  grew  up  in  the  monastic  school.  To  him  at 
length  came  the  desire  to  give  himself  to  God  : 
"  Here  will  I  dwell  for  ever  "  (Ps.  xxiii.,  verse  6). 
He  became  a  novice  ;  and,  the  year  of  his  novitiate 
ended,  he  took  the  vows  to  remain  attached  to  the 
monastery  ;  to  labour,  while  strength  lasted  ;  to 
perfect  himself  in  the  state  to  which  he  was  called  ; 
and,  lastly,  to  obey  the  abbot.  Then,  with  out- 
stretched arms,  he  sang  three  times  the  verse  which 
was  the  "  Open  Sesame  "  of  the  monastic  life 
(Ps.  cxix.,  verse  1 16),  "  O  stablish  me  according  to 
thy  word,  that  I  may  live ;  and  let  me  not  be  dis- 
appointed of  my  hope."  Three  times  the  com- 
munity repeated  the  words,  and  added  the  Gloria 
Patri.  Then,  dressed  in  monastic  habit,  the  new 
brother  knelt  at  the  feet  of  each  of  the  brethren, 
asked  for  their  prayers,  received  the  fraternal  kiss, 
and  so  became  a  monk,  bound  by  the  threefold  cord 
of  Obedience,  Labour,  and  Humility.  With  the 
same  verse  from  the  Psalms,  girls  were  received  into 
the  religious  communities,  which,  like  the  company 
of  Benedict's  sister,  Scholastica,  followed  the 
Benedictine  Rule. 

Once  admitted  to  the  Order,  the  lives  of  monks 
and  nuns  were  to  a  great  extent  regulated  by  the 
spirit,  if  not  by  the  letter,  of  the  Psalms.  On  the 
words,  "  I  said,  I  will  take  heed  to  my  ways,  that  I 
offend  not  in  my  tongue  "  (Ps.  xxxix.,  verse  i),was 
based  the  rule  of  silence.  One  of  the  first  labours 
of  the  brethren  was  to  learn  the  Psalter  by  heart. 
In  such  duties  of  monastic  life,  whether  homely  or 
sacred,  as  making  bread  for  the  altar,  setting  out  the 
relics,  attending  the  death-agony  of  a  brother,  taking 
places  at  the  refectory,  the  weekly  washing  of  feet, 


THE  PSALMS  IN  MONASTIC  LIFE        65 

the  beginning  and  end  of  readings  during  meals — 
psalms  were  sung  or  recited.  In  adorning  copies  of 
the  Psalter  with  all  the  quaint  and  beautiful  fancies 
of  devotional  imagination,  monks  spent  prayerful 
years  of  solitude  and  silence.  As  shrines  for  the 
Psalter,  their  abbeys  and  churches  were  built,  and 
to  the  chanting  of  a  psalm  (Ixxxiv.)  their  chosen  sites 
were  sprinkled  with  holy  water .  A  Psalm ,"  It  is  a  good 
thing  to  give  thanks  unto  the  Lord  .  .  .  Upon  an 
instrument  of  ten  strings,  and  upon  the  lute  :  upon  a 
loud  instrument,  and  upon  the  harp"  (Ps.  xcii.,  verses 
1-3),  sanctioned  the  use  of  the  organ  in  divine  ser- 
vice. By  verses  of  the  Psalms  (^"  In  the  evening  and 
morning,  and  at  noonday  will  I  pray,  and  that 
instantly,"  Ps.  Iv.,  verse  18  ;  "  Seven  times  a  day 
do  I  praise  thee,  because  of  thy  righteous  judg- 
ments," Ps.  cxix.,  verse  164  ;  and  "  At  midnight 
I  will  rise  to  give  thanks  unto  thee,"  Ps.  cxix., 
verse  62)  the  canonical  hours  were  regulated,  and 
on  the  Psalms  the  services  themselves  were  mainly 
based,  so  that  the  Psalter  was  sung  through  every 
week.  To  the  singing  of  a  psalm  (cl.)  their  bells  were 
cast,  as  the  brethren  waited  at  the  furnace  for  the 
metal  to  be  poured  into  the  mould.  With  the  chant- 
ing of  the  Psalms,  monks  traversed  wild  forests  and 
mountain  solitudes  ;  or,  like  Stephen  Harding, 
second  founder  of  the  Cistercians,  as  he  journeyed 
to  Rome,  met  the  perils  of  the  way  by  a  daily 
recitation  of  the  Psalter.  In  the  words  of  a  psalm, 
the  monastic  vocation  came  to  men  like  Thomas 
Aquinas  (Ps.  Ixxxiv.,  verse  11,  "  I  had  rather  be  a 
door-keeper  in  the  house  of  my  God,  than  to  dwell 
in  the  tents  of  ungodliness  "),  and  he  obeyed  the 
call  to  become  a  Dominican.  With  a  psalm  (Ps. 
cxiv.,  "  When  Israel  came  out  of  Egypt  "),  men 
like  Francis  Borgia,  Duke  of  Gandia  (1510-72), 
turned  their  backs  on  wealth  and  worldly  honours  to 
enter  religious  societies.  With  a  psalm,  like  Gail, 
or  Vincentius  of  Lerins  (Ps.  xlvi.,  verse  10),  monks 


66         THE  FORMATION  OF  NATIONS 

chose  the  sites  of  monasteries,  and,  as  they  reared 
the  walls,  exorcised  the  demons  of  mountain,  lake, 
or  wood.  In  the  spirit  of  the  Psalms,  monastic 
builders  lavished  their  genius  and  devotion  on  arch 
and  capital,  altar-shrine  and  tower,  portal  and 
window,  that  they  might  beautify  the  habitation 
of  God,  and  prepare  a  dwelling-place  meet  for  His 
honour.  Thus  it  was  with  Hugh  of  Cluni,  who, 
according  to  his  biographer,  said  within  himself, 
with  the  Psalmist , "  I  have  loved  the  habitation  of  thy 
house,  and  the  place  where  thine  honour  dwelleth  " 
(Ps.  xxvi.,  verse  8)  ;  and  whatsoever  the  devotion 
of  the  faithful  gave,  he  entirely  consecrated  to  the 
decoration  of  his  church  or  to  the  good  of  the  poor. 
To  the  mediaeval  monk,  the  choir  was  the  garden 
of  the  Lord,  in  which  he  laboured  day  and  night  ; 
it  was  his  paradise,  where,  in  the  cool  shadow  cast 
by  his  Redeemer,  he  might  rest  from  the  burning 
heat  of  the  world.  One  of  the  contemporaries  of 
Thomas  a  Kempis  describes  him,  when  he  took 
part  in  the  offices  of  the  Church  :  "  Whilst  he  was 
singing,  he  was  to  be  observed  with  his  face  always 
raised  towards  heaven,  as  if  inspired  with  a  sacred 
enthusiasm,  carried  and  borne  beyond  himself  by 
the  wonderful  sweetness  of  the  Psalms."  This  was 
the  spirit  of  mediaeval  psalmody.  As  its  tide  rolled 
forth,  night  and  day,  from  the  convent  or  monastery, 
and  swelled  over  hill  and  fen,  midnight  wayfarers, 
travelling  in  fear  of  their  lives,  felt  that  they  were  in 
the  hands  of  God  ;  and  labourers,  rising  to  their 
work  at  dawn,  or  resting  at  noon,  or  returning  with 
night,  knew,  though  they  understood  not  the  words, 
that  their  toil  was  consecrated  in  the  sight  of  their 
heavenly  Father.  Nor  has  the  stream  of  melody 
ever  ceased  to  flow.  R.ather  it  has  increased  in 
volume.  As  in  early  and  mediaeval  times,  so  in 
the  twentieth  century,  monks  and  nuns  and  other 
religious  still  sing  the  Psalms,  all  the  world  over,  as 
part  of  their  daily  lives. 


WITH  THE  MONK  IN  LIFE  AND  DEATH    e-j 

As  the  Psalms  presided  over  every  part  of  a  monk's 
life,  so  they  were  present  with  him  in  his  death. 
When  a  brother  lay  dying,  the  haircloth  was  spread, 
the  ashes  were  scattered,  and  in  them  a  cross  was 
traced.  Here  the  sick  man  was  laid.  By  blows  on 
a  board  the  brethren  were  summoned,  and,  wherever 
they  were,  or  whatever  their  occupations,  they  ran 
to  his  side,  and  remained  with  him  in  his  anguish, 
chanting  the  Penitential  Psalms  and  Litanies. 
Thus,  in  the  presence  of  the  fraternity,  in  sackcloth 
and  ashes,  supported  by  the  supplications  of  their 
brethren,  with  the  words  of  the  Psalms  beating  on 
their  ears,  as  they  had  sounded  throughout  their 
lives,  died  thousands  of  "  Knights  of  God  " — mem- 
bers of  the  most  powerful,  and,  with  all  their  short- 
comings, the  most  useful,  of  mediaeval  institutions. 

With  words  of  the  Psalms  in  their  ears,  or  on  their 
lips,  died  three  of  the  men  who  were  most  con- 
spicuous in  the  establishment  of  the  Benedictine 
Rule  in  England — Benedict  Biscop  (623-90),  Wilfrid 
(634-709),  and  Dunstan  (924-88). 

To  Benedict,  England  owes  a  vast  debt.  On  his 
work  rested  much  of  the  learning  and  culture  of 
the  eighth  century.  Studying  the  Benedictine  Rule 
at  Canterbury,  at  Lerins,  and  other  continental 
monasteries,  he  established  it  in  his  monasteries  of 
Jarrow  and  Wearmouth.  Six  times  he  visited 
Rome  —  now  seeking  architects,  masons,  and 
materials  to  beautify  his  churches  ;  now  bringing 
with  him  musicians  or  instructors  in  ritual  ;  now 
gathering  relics,  pictures,  images,  and  vestments  ; 
now  collecting  the  manuscripts  which  made  his 
libraries  famous.  Worn  out  by  labours,  and  para- 
lysed in  his  limbs,  he  listened,  through  sleepless 
nights,  to  the  repetition  of  psalms,  in  which  he  was 
himself  too  weak  to  join.  He  died  January  12,  690, 
when  those  who  watched  by  him  were  repeating 
Ps.  Ixxxiii.,  "  Hold  not  thy  tongue,  O  God  ;  keep 
6 


68         THE  FORMATION  OF  NATIONS 

not  still  silence."  Within  the  walls  of  Jarrow  the 
Venerable  Bede,  the  father  of  English  history,  the 
flower  of  the  monastic  schools,  the  true  type  of  a 
Benedictine,  was  already  harvesting  the  stores  of 
learning  which  Benedict  had  collected,  giving  his 
whole  energies,  as  he  says  of  himself,  to  meditation 
on  the  Scriptures  ;  delighting,  amid  the  observance 
of  the  monastic  rule  and  the  daily  ministry  of  singing 
in  the  church,  either  to  learn,  or  to  teach,  or  to  write. 
Widely  different  from  the  methods  of  Benedict 
Biscop  were  the  means  by  which  Wilfrid  sustained 
the  cause,  of  which  both  were  zealous  champions. 
Yet  in  their  love  of  art  they  were  at  one,  and  the 
magnificence  of  Ripon  rivalled  that  of  Wearmouth 
or  Jarrow.  In  the  monastery  of  Lindisfarne, 
Wilfrid  studied  the  Scottish  usages,  acquired  fame 
for  learning,  and  committed  the  Psalter  to  memory 
in  the  version  of  Jerome.  But  Rome  exercised  over 
him  an  irresistible  fascination.  His  mind  was  set 
towards  the  Papal  city,  even  during  his  stay  at 
Canterbury,  where  once  more  he  learnt  the  Psalter 
by  heart — this  time  in  the  old  Italic  version,  which 
was  adopted  there  and  at  Rome.  The  3'ears  652-8 
were  spent  at  Lyons  and  at  Rome  in  studying  the 
usages,  ritual,  and  discipline,  which  he  laboured  all 
his  stormy  life  to  establish  in  Northern  England. 
In  his  long  conflict  against  Celtic  Christianity,  he 
suffered  deposition,  exile,  imprisonment.  But  his 
purpose  never  wavered.  Thrown  into  prison  at 
Dunbar  {circa  681),  the  bishop  was  deserted  by  his 
spiritual  chief,  separated  from  friends  and  adherents, 
deprived  of  all  that  he  possessed  except  his  clothing, 
robbed  even  of  his  precious  reliquary,  which  was 
the  companion  of  his  many  journeys.  Yet  his 
guards  heard  the  fallen  prelate  chanting  the  Psalms 
as  cheerfully  as  if  he  were  in  his  own  monastery  of 
Ripon  or  Hexham.  His  banishments  were  fruitful 
in  labour.  During  one,  he  became  the  apostle  of 
the  Frisians  ;   in  another,  the  missionary  of  Sussex 


THE  DANISH  INVASION  69 

and  the  Isle  of  Wight.  The  last  effort  of  his  old 
age  was  the  visitation  of  the  monasteries  which  he 
had  founded.  Setting  out  from  Hexham,  now  the 
centre  of  his  See,  and  visiting  Ripon  on  his  way,  he 
rode  to  the  Mercian  houses  in  turn.  In  October  709, 
he  came  to  Oundle,  in  Northamptonshire.  There 
he  was  seized  with  a  fatal  illness.  Round  the  dying 
man  gathered  the  whole  community,  chanting  the 
Psalms  which  he  had  loved  so  well.  As  they  reached 
the  30th  verse  of  Ps.  civ.,  "  When  thou  lettest  thy 
breath  go  forth,  they  shall  be  made,"  his  breathing 
ceased,  and  his  stormy  life  was  ended. 

Up  and  down  the  country,  in  England  as  on  the 
Continent,  were  scattered  monastic  institutions — 
links  in  the  national  unity,  sanctuaries  of  religious 
life,  centres  of  education  and  civilisation,  nurseries 
of  arts  and  industries,  agricultural  colonies  which 
drained  fens  or  reclaimed  forests,  treasuries  in  which 
were  preserved  the  riches  of  ancient  learning. 
Gradually  the  stern  severity  of  the  Celtic  discipline 
yielded  before  the  more  human  spirit  of  its  Italian 
rival,  which  hallowed  not  only  manual  but  in- 
tellectual labour.  With  the  Danish  invasions  there 
came  a  check  and  a  recoil.  In  the  North,  East,  and 
centre  of  England,  the  invaders  fell  with  special  fury 
on  the  religious  communities.  They  devoured  the 
land  like  locusts.  Fire  and  sword  swept  away,  in  a 
few  hours,  the  fruits  of  the  patient  toil  of  a  century. 
In  the  South  and  West,  the  defenders,  though  hard- 
pressed,  held  their  own.  With  one  signal  triumph 
over  the  Danes,  Saxon  legend  inseparably  associated 
the  Psalms  in  the  person  of  St.  Neot,  who  every 
morning  said  the  Psalter  through,  and  every  mid- 
night chanted  a  hundred  psalms.  The  saint  died, 
full  of  years  and  honour,  among  his  countrymen. 
No  man  of  equal  sanctity  had  risen  to  take  his  place, 
when,  in  878,  King  Alfred  lay  in  his  tent  at  Iley,  on 
the  eve  of  the  battle  of  Ethendun.  To  the  king 
appeared  St.  Neot,  "  like  an  angel  of  God  ;  his  hair 


70         THE  FORMATION  OF  NATIONS 

white  as  snow,  his  raiment  white,  ghstening,  and 
fragrant  with  the  scents  of  heaven."  He  promised 
Alfred  victory.  "  The  Lord,"  he  said,  "  shall  be 
with  you  ;  even  the  Lord  strong  and  mighty,  the 
Lord  mighty  in  battle,  who  giveth  victory  unto 
kings  "  (Ps,  xxiv.,  verse  8). 

As  morning  broke,  the  little  band  of  Saxons 
fell  on  Guthrun  and  the  sleeping  Danes.  So  sudden 
was  their  onset,  that  at  first  they  carried  all  before 
them.  But  gradually  the  tide  of  battle  began  to 
sway.  It  was  turned  again  in  favour  of  King 
Alfred,  when  a  majestic  figure,  whom  the  Saxons 
recognised  as  St.  Neot  himself,  seizing  the  royal 
banner,  marshalled  his  countrymen  to  renewed 
effort,  victory,  and  pursuit.  So,  for  a  time,  peace 
came  to  the  land,  and  Guthrun  and  his  followers 
became  Christians. 

During  this  life-and-death  struggle,  it  was  not 
strange  that  morals  relaxed, monastic  fervour  cooled, 
and  heathen  practices  revived.  With  Dunstan,  the 
statesman  who  laboured  to  unite  England  under 
King  Edgar,  the  ecclesiastic  who,  as  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  strove  to  revive  monastic  life — a  new 
spirit  was  breathed  into  Church  and  State.  As 
Abbot  of  Glastonbury,  Dunstan  had  reformed  the 
community  which  he  governed .  But  the  Benedictine 
Rule  was  then  imperfectly  known  to  him,  and  it  was 
only  after  his  exile  in  Flanders  and  his  sojourn  in 
the  monastery  of  St,  Peter  at  Ghent  (956-57)  that 
he  realised  its  strength.  A  man  of  learning,  he 
was  attracted  by  its  opportunities  for  education. 
To  his  kindly  character  it  commended  itself  by  its 
humanity.  Himself  skilled  in  music,  painting,  iron 
work,  and  embroidery,  it  appealed  to  his  artistic 
temperament.  Keenly  sensitive  to  the  immorality 
of  the  times,  he  valued  its  example  of  the  separation 
from  all  sexual  relations.  In  its  uniform  adoption, 
he  saw  a  powerful  instrument  for  the  moral  reform 
of  Church  and  State,  for  the  unification  and  in- 


ARCHBISHOP  DUNSTAN  71 

tellectual  progress  of  the  nation.  Before  his  death, 
the  Rule  was  practically  universal  in  England. 
Almost  his  last  public  act  was  the  coronation  of 
Ethelred,  in  978,  at  Kingston.  Retiring  from 
affairs  of  State,  he  passed  his  remaining  years  at 
Canterbur}^,  occupied  in  business,  in  teaching,  or  the 
practice  of  handicrafts,  constant  in  prayer  by  night 
and  day,  dehghting  in  the  services  of  the  Church  and 
in  psalmody.  In  May  988,  his  strength  failed  him. 
He  had  received  the  "  Viaticum,"  and  died  as  he 
was  giving  thanks  in  the  words,  "  The  merciful  and 
gracious  Lord  hath  so  done  his  marvellous  works, 
that  they  ought  to  be  had  in  remembrance.  He 
hath  given  meat  unto  them  that  fear  Him  "  (Ps. 
cxi.,  verses  4,  5). 

At  the  close  of  the  tenth  century,  the  Benedictine 
Rule  had  conquered  France  ;  it  had  won  Germany 
and  Spain  ;  it  was  established  in  England.  The 
vision  of  Benedict  was  realised,  and  the  monastic 
world  gathered  together  under  one  beam  of  the  sun. 


CHAPTER    IV 
The  Middle  Ages 

The  battle  of  Vougle  ;  the  Psalms  in  ecclesiastical  or  semi- 
ecclesiastical  history:  (i)  the  Papacy  and  the  Empire — Charle- 
magne, Gregory  vii.  and  Henry  iv.,  Anselm  and  William 
Rufus,  Henry  ii.  and  Thomas  a  Becket,  Alexander  iii.  and 
Frederick  Barbarossa  ;  (2)  pilgrimages  ;  (3)  crusades,  Abp. 
Baldwin,  Richard  i.,  Henry  v. — Abbot  Adelme  at  the  Tagus, 
Cardinal  Ximenes,  Demetrius  of  the  Don  ;  (4)  the  religious 
revival  ;  St.  Bernard  ;  Stephen  Harding  and  the  Cistercian 
reform — Citeaux  and  Fountains  Abbey  ;  St.  Francis  of 
Assisi  and  the  Franciscans  ;  Albertus  Magnus,  the  Universal 
Doctor  ;  the  Psalms  in  secular  history — William  the  Con- 
queror, Vladimir  Monomachus,  David  i.  of  Scotland,  Abelard 
and  Heloise,  St.  Louis  of  France.  William  Wallace  ;  in 
mediaeval  science  ;  in  mediaeval  literature — De  Imitatione 
Christi,  Divina  Commedia,  Piers  Plowman,  The  Golden  Legend. 

AS  the  centuries  advance,  the  Psalms  touch 
human  hfe  at  points  which  grow  more  and 
more  numerous,  till  the  whole  circle  of  thought  and 
action  seems  to  be  embraced.  Mediaeval  literature 
and  science,  as  well  as  secular  and  ecclesiastical 
history,  are  permeated  by  their  influence. 

The  strongest  of  the  monarchies  which  rose  on 
the  ruins  of  the  Western  Empire  was  the  Prankish 
Kingdom.  Hitherto  the  youthful  nations,  whose 
vigour  had  scourged  the  effeminacy  of  the  older 
world,  if  Christians  at  all,  had  been  Arians.  But 
the  baptism  of  Clovis  had  for  the  first  time  arrayed 
force  on  the  side  of  orthodox  Christianity  ;  alike 
against  heretics,  heathen,  and  Saracens,  the  Franks 
were  its  zealous  champions.  It  was  this  fact  that 
gave  significance  to  the  victory  which  Clovis  won 


THE  VICTORY  OF  CLOVIS  73 

at  Vougle  (507)  over  Alaric  11.  and  his  Arian 
Visigoths. 

Blessed  by  Remy  at  Rheims,  Clovis  had  marched 
towards  the  Loire.  Encamping  close  to  Tours,  he 
sent  to  the  church,  in  which  rested  the  bones  of  St. 
Martin,  to  inquire  whether  any  presage  of  victory 
would  be  vouchsafed  to  him.  As  his  messengers 
entered  the  church,  the  choir  were  chanting  the 
words,  "  Thou  hast  girded  me  with  strength  unto  the 
battle  ;  Thou  shalt  throw  down  mine  enemies  under 
me.  Thou  hast  made  mine  enemies  also  to  turn 
their  backs  upon  me  ;  and  I  shall  destroy  them  that 
hate  me  "  (Ps.  xviii.,  verses  39,  40).  Encouraged 
by  the  omen,  Clovis  pressed  on.  A  ford  over  the 
Vienne  was  revealed  by  a  deer,  and,  as  he  advanced 
towards  Poitiers,  a  bright  gleam,  shining  from  the 
church  of  St.  Hilary  as  from  a  lighthouse,  guided 
the  movements  of  his  troops.  In  the  battle  of 
Vougle,  Alaric  was  killed  by  the  hand  of  Clovis ; 
the  Visigoths  fled,  and  southern  Gaul,  from  the 
Loire  to  the  Garonne,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
Franks. 

From  the  time  of  Clovis  onwards  the  growing 
power  of  the  Frankish  Kingdom  had  attracted  the 
eyes  of  successive  Popes,  who  saw  in  its  rulers  the 
destined  heirs  of  the  Roman  Emperors  of  the  West. 
The  idea  of  an  universal  church,  whose  centre  was 
Rome,  rapidly  approached  its  realisation.  With  it 
grew  up  the  conception  of  its  necessary  counterpart, 
a  conception  which  was  bred  partly  of  memory, 
partly  of  hope.  The  establishment  of  an  universal 
monarchy  in  close  alliance  with  the  world-wide 
dominion  of  the  Church  was  the  vision  which 
fascinated  the  imagination  of  the  noblest  minds. 
At  the  head  of  this  Christian  commonwealth  of 
nations,  in  its  temporal  character,  was  to  stand  the 
emperor  ;  at  its  head,  in  its  spiritual  character,  was 
to  stand  the  Pope. 

For  the  realisation  of  such  a  vision  the  ground 


74  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

was  already  prepared.  The  spell  of  the  old  Empire 
lay  upon  the  barbarians  themselves.  Not  only 
were  they  awe-struck  by  the  stately  ceremonial  of 
the  Christian  religion  ;  they  were  also  impressed  with 
a  sense  of  the  sanctity  of  the  emperor,  eager  to  pre- 
serve imperial  institutions,  anxious  to  perpetuate  im- 
perial methods  of  administration.  Decrepit  though 
the  Eastern  Empire  might  be,  the  West  was  familiar- 
ised with  the  idea  of  universal  monarchy  by  the 
shadowy  claims,  waning  powers,  and  insecure 
ascendency  of  the  Byzantine  Emperors. 

In  the  eighth  century  the  policy  of  the  Papacy 
rapidl}''  assumed  a  definite  shape,  and  the  first  steps 
were  taken  to  break  the  link  which  still  bound  the 
Popes  to  Byzantium.  Already  the  aid  of  Pepin 
had  been  invoked  against  invaders  ;  already  the 
Papacy  had  lent  a  special  sanctity  to  the  coronation 
of  the  King  of  the  Franks  ;  already  it  had  received 
its  reward  in  the  gift  of  the  Papal  States.  Once 
more,  at  Pepin's  death,  the  Lombards  invaded  the 
possessions  of  the  Church.  At  the  call  of  Pope 
Hadrian,  Charlemagne  swept  away  the  invaders, 
and  added  Northern  Italy  to  the  dominions  of  the 
Franks. 

With  the  penultimate  stage  of  a  vast  change,  a 
psalm  is  inseparably  connected.  Leaving  his  army 
at  Pavia,  Charlemagne  journeyed  to  Rome.  Out- 
side the  city  he  was  welcomed  by  the  Cross,  which 
hitherto  had  only  been  carried  beyond  the  walls  to 
greet  the  approach  of  the  Exarch  or  the  Patrician. 
At  the  sight  of  the  sacred  symbol  Charlemagne 
dismounted  from  his  horse,  and,  entering  Rome  on 
foot,  reached  the  portal  of  St.  Peter  (April  2,  774). 
There  Pope  Hadrian  received  him  and  took  him  in 
his  arms.  Together  they  entered  the  basilica,  which 
Constantine  had  erected  on  the  spot  traditionally 
hallowed  as  the  scene  of  St.  Peter's  martyrdom. 
Hand  in  hand  they  advanced  towards  the  semi- 
circular apse,  passed   under  the   arch  of   victory, 


CHARLEMAGNE  AS  EMPEROR  75 

ascended  the  long  flight  of  steps,  and  prostrated 
themselves  before  the  high  altar,  while  the  multitude 
who  thronged  the  building  chanted,  "Blessed  be 
he  that  cometh  in  the  Name  of  the  Lord  "  (Ps. 
cxviii.,  verse  26). 

On  the  next  da}^,  Charlemagne,  hailed  by  the 
Pope  as  his  champion  and  by  the  people  as  their 
deliverer,  was  confirmed  in  the  title  of  Patrician  and 
Consul  of  the  Romans,  promised  to  protect  the  city 
and  defend  the  Church,  and,  in  the  tunic  and  sandals 
of  the  Patrician,  took  his  seat  at  the  tribunal  of 
j ustice .  For  six-and-twenty  years  the  final  stage  was 
postponed,  while  the  Byzantine  Emperor  remained 
the  titular  sovereign  of  Rome.  On  Christmas  Day, 
800,  the  long  revolt  was  consummated.  Western 
Europe  disavowed  the  rule  of  the  Eastern  Empire, 
when,  in  the  basilica  of  St.  Peter,  Pope  Leo  iii. 
placed  on  the  head  of  Charlemagne  "  the  diadem  of 
the  Csesars,"  while  the  people  prayed  for  long  life 
and  victory  to  "  Charles,  the  most  pious  Augustus, 
crowned  by  God,  the  peace-giving  Emperor." 

Fourteen  years  later  (January  28,  814),  Charle- 
magne, whose  favourite  psalm  was  Psalm  Ixviii. 
("  Let  God  arise  "),  died  at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  re- 
peating with  his  last  breath  the  words,  "Into  thy 
hands  I  commend  my  spirit  "  (Ps.  xxxi.,  verse  6). 
He  had  loved  to  be  called  among  his  friends  by  the 
name  of  David.  Church  music  and  psalmody  were 
the  delight  of  a  man,  who,  in  his  terrible  vengeance 
on  his  enemies,  his  political  and  ecclesiastical  work, 
and  the  moral  aberrations  of  his  passionate  nature, 
presents  curious  points  of  resemblance  to  the  founder 
of  the  Jewish  monarchy. 

As  time  went  on  the  relations  between  the  Papacy 
and  the  Empire  took  a  different  shape,  and  became 
a  contest  for  supremacy  between  the  temporal  and 
spiritual  powers.  At  Salerno,  in  the  Cathedral  of 
St.  Matthew  the  Apostle,  surrounded  by  the  narrow, 
irregular  streets,  which  still  bear  witness,  through 


^e  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

their  varied  architecture,  to  the  Lombard  occu- 
pation, the  Saracen  conquests,  the  Norman  rule  of 
Guiscard,  and  the  ascendency  of  the  Hohenstaufen, 
is  the  tomb  of  Hildebrand,  the  son  of  a  carpenter  at 
Soana,  and,  as  Gregory  vii.,  the  vehement  champion 
of  the  papal  supremacy.  It  was  Hildebrand  who 
freed  the  Church  from  vassalage  to  the  temporal 
power,  and  stemmed  the  flowing  tide  of  priestly 
corruption.  If,  on  one  side  of  his  career,  he  seemed 
the  incarnation  of  spiritual  pride,  it  should  not  be 
forgotten  that,  as  a  moral  reformer,  he  roused  the 
conscience  of  Europe.  From  the  austere  heights 
of  his  own  self-discipline  he  rebuked  the  vices  of 
emperors  and  kings,  and  to  his  example  men  ap- 
pealed, in  after  ages,  when  sin  was  once  more 
rampant  in  high  places — 

"  We  need  another  Hildebrand  to  shake 
And  purify  us."  ^ 

For  a  quarter  of  a  century,  during  five  successive 
pontificates,  Hildebrand  had  guided  the  policy  of 
the  Papacy  with  strong  hand  and  watchful  eye. 
Tier  by  tier  he  had  raised  the  fabric  of  Theocracy, 
which,  in  its  moral  grandeur,  was  the  inspiration  of 
his  life.  If  kings  refused  to  recognise  the  eternal 
laws  of  divine  justice,  their  rule  was  tyranny  ;  if 
the  people  yielded  no  obedience  to  civil  rulers,  the 
result  was  anarchy.  It  was  Hildebrand's  aim  to 
make  the  Church,  purified  and  independent,  the 
arbitrator  between  the  two,  and  the  spiritual  ruler 
of  both.  Elected  Pope  in  1073  under  the  title  of 
Gregory  vii.,  he  entered  on  the  struggle  which  lay 
before  him  with  the  serene  conviction  that,  as  the 
Vicar  of  Christ,  he  was  the  Divine  instrument.  His 
ambition  was  for  the  Papacy  rather  than  for  himself. 
His  pride  was  not  a  peasant's  vanity  in  his  exalted 
station,  but  an  assertion  of  his  dignity  as  the  earthly 
representative  of  God. 

*  Longfellow,  The  Golden  Legend,  iv. 


POPES  AND  EMPERORS  ^^ 

The  history  of  his  Papacy  is  full  of  dramatic 
episodes.  It  had  its  triumph  when  the  Emperor 
Henry  iv.,  in  penitential  garb,  ascended  the  rocky 
path,  and  for  three  days,  in  hunger,  cold,  and  shame, 
waited  at  the  gate  of  the  Castle  of  Canossa  (1077). 
It  met  its  fatal  reverse  (1084)  when  the  Pope,  a 
prisoner  in  St.  Angelo,  was  rescued  by  Robert 
Guiscard.  Such  a  downfall  broke  the  heart  of 
Gregory.  In  the  Castle  of  Salerno,  under  the  pro- 
tection of  the  Normans,  he  died  on  May  25,  1085. 
His  last  words,  taken  from  Psalm  xlv.,  verse  8, 
breathe  the  tragic  fulness  of  his  bitter  disappoint- 
ment :  "I  have  loved  righteousness,  and  hated 
iniquity  ; — and  therefore  I  die  in  exile." 

The  great  struggle  between  the  Popes  and  the 
temporal  rulers  of  Europe  extended  to  England, 
though,  during  the  reign  of  William  the  Conqueror, 
it  was  averted  by  the  personal  concert  between  him- 
self and  Archbishop  Lanfranc.  But  when  to 
William's  wise,  yet  severe  tyranny  succeeded  the 
savage  licence  of  William  Rufus,  that  struggle 
between  Church  and  State  at  once  began  which 
lasted  to  the  Reformation.  In  Archbishop  Anselm 
were  worthily  embodied  the  spiritual  claims  of  the 
Church.  Tender-hearted  and  affectionate,  he  loved 
both  man  and  beast.  The  well-known  story  of  the 
hunted  hare  illustrates  his  feeling  for  dumb  animals, 
and  his  habit  of  reading  moral  lessons  into  the 
ordinary  events  of  life.  As  the  archbishop  rode 
from  Windsor  to  Hayes,  a  hare  was  started  and 
pursued  by  his  retainers  and  their  dogs.  It  took 
refuge  under  his  horse,  and  Anselm  bade  the  men 
call  off  their  dogs,  and  let  the  trembling  creature  go. 
The  hunters  laughed.  "  Do  ye  laugh  ?  "  he  said  : 
"  this  poor  beast  is  far  from  laughter.  She  is  like 
a  Christian  soul  ceaselessly  pursued  by  demons,  that 
would  drag  it  down  to  eternal  death.  Poor  soul  in 
torture,  looking  round  in  sore  distress,  seeking  with 
longing  unspeakable  for  a  hand  to  save  !  "     Every 


78  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

instinct  of  his  nature  impelled  him  towards  the  ideal 
rather  than  the  practical  aspects  of  life,  or  inclined 
him  to  study  its  spiritual  rather  than  its  temporal 
needs.  Thought,  not  action,  was  the  true  sphere  of 
the  man  whom  Dante  places  among  the  doctors  of 
the  Church  in  the  Heaven  of  the  Sun.  Transferred 
from  the  retirement  of  the  Abbey  of  Bee  to  the 
publicity  of  the  See  of  Canterbury  (1093-1109),  he 
likens  himself  to  an  owl,  who, "  when  he  is  in  his  hole 
with  his  young  ones,  is  happy  ;  but  when  he  goes 
out  among  crows  and  other  birds,  they  hunt  him 
and  strike  him  with  their  beaks,  and  he  is  ill  at 
ease."  His  office  compelled  him  to  be  not  only 
a  great  ecclesiastic,  but  a  great  feudal  noble.  It 
forced  him,  also,  to  choose  between  the  Pope  and 
the  king.  To  his  pure  soul  the  solution  of  the 
difficulty  would  probably  have  been  the  surrender 
of  worldly  greatness,  in  order  to  increase  his  moral 
influence.  But  to  a  guardian  of  the  gifts  bestowed 
upon  the  Church  of  God,  such  a  way  of  escape  was 
impossible.  When,  therefore,  the  conffict  began  his 
choice  was  inevitable  ;  he  made  it  with  quiet  courage, 
and  adhered  to  it  with  invincible  resolution.  As  the 
struggle  dragged  its  slow  length  along,  he  stood 
alone  in  England,  siding  more  and  more  with  the 
Pope,  who  was  to  him  the  embodiment  of  law  and 
right  in  a  world  of  tyranny  and  wrong. 

In  1098  Anselm  was  at  Rome,  waiting  the  results 
of  his  appeal  to  Pope  Urban  11.  against  William 
Rufus.  But  the  air  of  Rome  was  unwholesome 
to  one  who,  though  Piedmontese  by  birth,  was 
accustomed  to  a  northern  chmate.  He  therefore 
visited  Abbot  John  of  St.  Salvator,  a  former  monk 
of  Bee,  now  the  ruler  of  a  monastery  at  Telesia, 
between  Benevento  and  Capua.  On  the  higher 
slopes  of  the  neighbouring  mountains  was  a  village 
called  Schlavia,  to  which  the  monks  resorted  in 
the  summer  months.  To  this  beautiful  spot  Anselm 
was  taken.     On  the  hilltop,  in  the  crisp  mountain 


MURDER  OF  ARCHBISHOP  BECKET     79 

air,  respited  from  his  cares,  surrounded  by  the  sim- 
pHcities  of  Hfe  and  the  charms  of  nature,  the  old 
man's  heart  leaped  within  him.  "  This,"  he  broke 
forth,  like  Gall,  in  the  words  of  a  psalm  (cxxxii., 
verse  15),  "  shall  be  my  rest  for  ever  ;  here  will  I 
dwell,  for  I  have  a  delight  therein."  It  was  at 
Schlavia  that  he  thought  out  and  composed  his 
famous  treatise.  Cur  Deus  Homo  ?  in  which  he 
discussed  the  rational  ground  of  the  Atonement, 
and  expounded  his  profound  and  original  view  of  the 
Incarnation. 

In  the  protracted  struggle  between  Henry  11. 
and  Thomas  k  Becket,  the  same  issue  was  involved. 
But  the  sacrilege  of  Becket 's  murder  at  Canterbury 
(Tuesday,  December  29,  11 70)  gave  the  temporary 
victory  to  the  Church  over  the  State. 

At  five  o'clock  on  a  winter's  evening,  the  monks 
were  singing  vespers  in  the  dimly-lighted  cathedral. 
Suddenly  came  the  news  that  soldiers  were  forcing 
their  way  into  the  cloisters  on  the  north  side  of  the 
building.  Becket  had  mounted  the  fourth  step  of 
the  staircase,  which  led  from  the  Chapel  of  St. 
Benedict  to  the  choir  of  the  church,  when  the  four 
knights,  in  full  armour,  their  mail  hiding  their  faces, 
burst  into  the  building.  At  the  summons  of  Fitz- 
urse  he  descended  into  the  transept,  and  in  his  white 
rochet,  a  cloak  and  hood  thrown  over  his  shoulders, 
faced  the  murderers.  A  blow  on  the  head  from 
Tracy  drew  blood.  As  the  archbishop  wiped  the 
stain  from  his  face  he  said  the  familiar  words,  "  Into 
thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit  "  (Ps.  xxxi.,  verse 
6).  The  deed  was  soon  accomplished.  But  mis- 
fortunes crowded  on  the  king.  At  Avranches,  in 
May  1 172,  Henry  had  done  penance  for  the  crime  of 
his  adherents.  Yet  troubles  seemed  only  to  increase, 
and  at  Canterbury  he  made  a  further  and  final 
expiation.  On  July  12,  1 174,  he  entered  the  streets 
of  the  city,  walking  barefoot, — naked,  except  for 
a  shirt  and  cloak.     In  the  cathedral  he  kissed  the 


8o  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

stone  where  Becket  had  fallen,  recited  the  peni- 
tential psalm  against  wrath  (Ps.  vi.),  prostrated  him- 
self before  the  tomb  of  the  archbishop,  and  then, 
placing  his  head  and  shoulders  upon  it,  was  scourged 
by  the  bishops,  abbots,  and  each  of  the  eighty  monks 
who  were  present.  His  humiliation  was  so  pro- 
found that  the  chroniclers  appeal  to  the  language  of 
the  Psalms  to  describe  the  impression  it  produced — 
"  The  mountains  trembled  at  the  presence  of  the 
Lord,"  "  the  mountain  of  Canterbury  smoked  before 
Him  who  touches  the  hills  and  they  smoke." 

Yet  another  scene  in  the  struggle  between  Church 
and  State  is  illustrated  by  the  Psalms.  In  July 
1 177,  the  long  conflict  between  Pope  Alexander  in. 
and  the  Emperor  Frederick  Barbarossa  drew  to  its 
close.  The  hand  of  God,  so  it  seemed  to  pious  minds, 
struck  down  the  German  Emperor  in  his  hour  of 
triumph.  Master  of  Rome,  he  had  forced  his 
creature  into  the  chair  of  St.  Peter.  But  pestilence 
destroyed  his  army.  Disguised,  and  almost  alone, 
Barbarossa  made  his  way  by  an  unfrequented  pass  to 
Germany.  The  Lombard  League  supported  Alex- 
ander III.  against  his  rival  and  the  emperor  ;  the 
battle  of  Legnano  (May  29,  1 1  'j6)  broke  Barbarossa's 
power,  and  compelled  him  to  make  terms  with  the 
Pope.  At  Venice,  in  the  summer  of  1 177,  Pope  and 
emperor  were  reconciled.  Himself  a  Sienese,  it  was 
at  Siena  that  Alexander  commemorated  his  triumph 
in  the  frescoes  with  which  Spinello  has  adorned  the 
Sala  di  Baha.  But  in  the  porch  of  St.  Mark's  at 
Venice  is  another  record  of  the  scene.  Three  marble 
slabs  mark  the  spot  where  Barbarossa  humbled 
himself  before  his  enemy.  Legend  is  at  least  true 
to  the  spirit  of  the  conflict  when  it  represents  the 
Pope  as  placing  his  foot  on  the  neck  of  the  kneeling 
emperor  and  quoting  the  words  of  Ps.  xci.,  verse  13, 
"  Thou  shalt  go  upon  the  lion  and  adder  ;  the  yodng 
lion  and  the  dragon  shalt  thou  tread  under  thy 
feet."     In  this  case  the  Sienese  frescoes  may  have 


HUMILIATION  OF  BARBAROSSA       8i 

bred  the   legend,  which   Rogers   uses  in  his   Italy 
("St.  Mark's  Place  ")  : 

"  In  that  temple  porch 
(The  brass  is  gone,  the  porphyry  remains). 
Did  Barbarossa  fling  his  mantle  off, 
And,  kneeling,  on  his  neck  receive  the  foot 
Of  the  proud  Pontiff — thus  at  length  consoled 
For  flight,  disguise,  and  many  an  aguish  shake 
On  his  stone  pillow." 

It  is  to  the  same  legend  that  Wordsworth  refers 
in  his  Ecclesiastical  Sonnets  (No.  xxxviii.)  : 

"  Black  Demons  hovering  o'er  his  mitred  head. 
To  Ca?sar's  Successor  the  Pontiff  spake  ; 
'  Ere  I  absolve  thee,  stoop  !    that  on  thy  neck 
Levelled  with  earth  this  foot  of  mine  may  tread.' 
Then  he,  who  to  the  altar  had  been  led. 
He,   whose  strong  arm  the  Orient  could  not  check, 
He  who  had  held   the  Soldan  at  his  beck, 
Stooped,   of  all  glory  disinherited, 
And  even  the  common  dignity  of  man  !  " 

Nor  did  the  Church  only  use  her  power  to  assert 
supremacy  over  the  State.  It  was  an  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  Stephen  Langton,  who  championed 
the  cause  of  English  liberty,  when  Magna  Carta 
was  won  from  John,  and  it  was  with  a  psalm  on  his 
lips  (Ps.  h.)  that  he  passed  to  his  rest.  Men  who 
opposed  kings  took  their  lives  in  their  hands. 
Langton  led  a  national  movement  and  won.  Less 
fortunate  in  his  cause  and  fate  was  Richard  Scrope, 
Archbishop  of  York,  the  first  English  prelate  who 
was  executed  by  the  civil  power.  He  had  opposed 
the  accession  of  Henry  iv.,  against  whom  he  sup- 
ported the  rival  claims  of  the  Earl  of  March.  The 
king  was  determined  on  his  death.  It  is  said  that 
Judge  Gascoyne,  famous  for  his  uprightness  and  in- 
dependence, refused  to  preside  at  the  trial.  A  more 
pliant  instrument  was  found,  and  the  archbishop 
was  condemned  to  death.  He  was  beheaded  on 
June  8,  1405,  in  a  field  betw^een  York  and  Bishop- 
thorpe.     Thomas   Gent,   the   ancient   historian   of 


82  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

York,  describes  how  "  the  poor  unfortunate  Arch- 
bishop," "habited  in  a  sky-coloured  loose  garment 
with  sleeves  of  the  same  colour,"  for  he  was  not 
allowed  to  wear  his  linen  vesture,  was  "  put  upon  a 
horse,  about  the  value  of  forty  pence,  with  a  halter 
about  its  neck,  but  without  a  saddle  on  its  back." 
To  a  Yorkshireman  the  insult  of  being  placed  on  such 
an  animal  was  deep.  But  Scrope  "  gave  thanks  to 
God,  saying,  '  I  never  liked  a  horse  better  than  I 
like  this  one.'  "  Then,  after  twice  singing  through 
Psalm  Ixiv.,  he  laid  his  head  upon  the  block  and 
died. 

The  policy  of  ecclesiastical  rulers  was  not  always 
disinterested,  and  not  all  Churchmen  were  patriots. 
Yet  closely  associated  with  every  rank  in  Society, 
bridging  by  the  various  grades  in  her  organisation 
the  distances  between  class  and  class,  vindicating  the 
supremacy  of  moral  power  over  the  tyranny  of 
brute  force,  often  espousing  the  cause  of  national 
liberty  and  personal  freedom,  the  Church  was  an 
effective  instrument  in  welding  into  nations  the  in- 
habitants of  definite  geographical  areas.  At  the 
same  time,  her  universal  character  knew  nothing  of 
national  barriers.  Her  unity  fostered  the  inter- 
course of  peoples,  and  promoted  international  re- 
lations, political,  social,  and  commercial.  To  this 
same  end  two  other  mediaeval  agencies — pilgrim- 
ages and  crusades — powerfully  contributed.  In 
both,  European  Christendom,  rich  and  poor,  united 
for  common  objects.  In  both,  the  Psalms  were  at 
work. 

Pilgrimages  to  Palestine  practically  began  with 
the  journey  of  the  Empress  Helena,  mother  of  Con- 
stantine  the  Great,  and  her  "  invention  "  of  the 
true  Cross  at  Jerusalem  (326).  A  few  years  later, 
the  Bordeaux  Pilgrim  wrote  the  first  Christian 
guide-book  to  the  Holy  Land  ;  and  during  the  life- 
time of  Jerome,  pilgrims,  fired  by  his  example,  or 
attracted  by  his  fame,  greatly  increased  in  number. 


PILGRIMAGES  TO  PALESTINE  83 

Between  385  and  388,  Silvia  of  Aquitaine  visited  the 
Holy  Land,  and  even  passed  beyond  the  bounds  of 
the  Roman  Empire.  As  they  journeyed  towards 
their  goal,  pilgrims  sang  together  three  psalms  at 
the  canonical  hours,  and,  on  reaching  Jerusalem, 
their  first  act  was  to  ascend  the  tower  of  David,  and 
recite  the  whole  Psalter.  Saturated,  as  they  were, 
with  the  language  of  the  Psalms,  the  early  pilgrims 
brought  back  strange  reports  of  the  miracles  which 
were  worked  in  Palestine,  even  as  the  Psalmist  had 
foretold.  After  the  sun  was  up,  a  cloud  rose  from 
the  Hill  of  Hermon,  and  stood  over  the  church  at 
Jerusalem,  as  David  had  sung  of  the  dew  of  Hermon 
which  fell  upon  the  Hill  of  Sion.  So  says  Antoninus 
of  Placentia,  surnamed  the  Martyr,  who  visited 
Palestine  in  the  days  of  Justinian.  He  also  relates 
how,  during  the  Epiphany  festival,  at  the  baptism 
of  catechumens  on  the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  when 
the  waters  were  blessed,  the  river  returned  upon 
itself  with  a  roar  ;  the  upper  part  stood  still  until 
the  ceremony  was  completed,  the  lower  part  running 
away  to  the  sea.  Thus,  as  David  had  said,  "Jordan 
was  driven  back  "  (cxiv.3).  His  contemporary  Theo- 
dosius,  in  his  work  De  Situ  Terrce  Sandce,  tells  how  "a 
vine  which  the  Lord  had  planted,"  close  to  the  field 
where  He  had  Himself  ploughed  a  furrow,  regularly 
provided  the  wine  for  the  Pentecostal  communion 
how  the  "  little  hills  "  had  walked  exulting  before 
the  Lord,  when  He  descended  to  Baptism,  even  as 
David  had  said,  "  The  mountains  skipped  like  rams, 
and  the  little  hills  hke  young  sheep  "  (cxiv.  6) ;  and 
how ,  to  the  pious  eye  of  the  traveller , ' '  even  to  this  day 
they  seemed  in  the  act  of  jumping."  With  the  lapse 
of  years,  religious  fervour  cooled.  Mixed  motives 
influenced  the  motley  crowds,  who,  with  knobbed 
iron-shod  staves  in  their  hands,  a  scrip  for  pro- 
visions slung  at  their  sides,  their  hats  and  clothes 
studded  with  leaden  medals  and  pewter  brooches, 
journeyed  to  Walsingham  or  Canterbury,  to  Roca- 

7 


84  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

madour  or  Compostella,  and  even  to  Rome  or 
Jerusalem.  Some  travelled  barefoot,  or  naked 
but  for  their  shirts,  to  expiate  their  sins  ;  others 
toiled  wearily  in  the  hope  of  miraculous  healing  ; 
others  fulfilled  a  vow  made  in  sickness  ;  some 
protested  against  the  government  by  visiting  the 
shrine  of  a  canonised  rebel  ;  others  became  pilgrims 
by  profession,  from  laziness,  for  the  pleasures  of  the 
journey,  from  love  of  adventure.  But  however 
great  may  have  been  the  abuses  which  were  satirised 
by  Langland  and  Wyclif,  by  the  author  of  Reynard 
the  Fox  and  Erasmus,  there  never  failed  to  be 
numbers  of  simple  devout  pilgrims,  who,  as  they 
travelled  singly  or  in  companies,  chanted  the  Psalms 
on  the  way  in  the  spirit  of  an  earlier  faith,  and  re- 
turned strengthened  and  consoled  by  beholding  the 
mysterious  object  of  their  pious  veneration. 

The  Crusades,  like  the  struggle  between  the 
temporal  and  spiritual  powers,  and  like  mediaeval 
pilgrimages,  were  necessarily  permeated  by  religious 
mfluences.  If  they  do  not  exclusively  belong  to  the 
domain  of  Church  History,  they  move  in  that 
broad  belt  of  twilight  where  things  secular  and 
things  ecclesiastical  are  as  closely  associated  as  the 
beginnings  of  night  or  day. 

There  were  but  few  of  the  battlefields  against  the 
Saracens  which  had  not  resounded  with  the  Venite 
(Ps.  xcv.),  the  battle-cry  of  the  Templars,  as,  in 
after  ages,  the  Psalms  supplied  the  war-shout  of 
John  Sobieski,  the  motto  of  the  Great  Armada,  the 
watchwords  of  Gustavus  Adolphus  and  of  Crom- 
well, the  Marseillaise  of  the  Huguenots  and  the 
Cevenols.  From  the  Psalms  the  Crusade  was 
preached  by  St.  Bernard,  who  made  special  use  of 
Ps.cxliv.("  Blessed  be  the  Lord  my  strength,"  etc.), 
and  Ps.  cxvi.,  verse  13  ("  Right  dear  in  the  sight 
of  the  Lord  is  the  death  of  his  saints  ").  When,  on 
October  3,  11 87,  Jerusalem  was  again  taken  by 
Saladin,  it  was  once  more  from  the  Psalms  that 


THE  CRUSADES  85 

Pope  Clement  in.  urged  the  bishops  to  preach 
another  Holy  War  (Ps.  cxxvii.,  "  Except  the  Lord 
build  the  house,"  etc.).  Baldwin,  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  responded  to  the  appeal,  donned  the 
White  Cross  of  England,  raised  the  banner  of 
St.  Thomas,  and  preached  the  Crusade  in  Wales, 
chanting  the  Psalms  as  the  war-song  of  his  recruits. 
At  the  head  of  his  troop,  he  left  England,  March  6, 
1 190,  eager  to  win  back  "  the  sepulchre  of  Christ," 
and 

"To  chase  these  Pagans,   in  those  holy  fields, 
Over  whose  acres  walked  those  blessed  feet, 
WTiich  fourteen  hundred  years  ago  were  nail'd 
For  our  advantage  on  the  bitter  cross."  ^ 

From  the  first  he  was  doomed  to  disappointment. 
In  the  language  of  the  Psalms,  his  chaplain  sums  up 
the  archbishop's  horror  at  the  licentiousness  of  the 
Crusaders'  host.  "  God,"  he  says,  "  is  not  in  the 
camp.  There  is  none  that  doeth  good,  no  not  one  " 
(Ps.  xiv.,  verse  2).  In  his  despair,  the  archbishop 
prayed  for  death,  in  words  that  plainly  allude  to 
another  Psalm  (cxviii.,  verse  18),  "  O  Lord,  my 
God  !  such  need  is  there  for  chastening  and  cor- 
recting with  Thy  holy  grace,  that,  if  it  please  Thy 
mercy,  I  pray  to  be  removed  from  the  turmoil  of 
this  life.  I  have  tarried  long  enough  with  this 
army."  Fifteen  days  later  (November  19,  1190)  he 
died  at  Acre.  In  the  words  of  a  psalm,  Richard  i. 
poured  out  his  indignation,  when  he  found  himself 
deserted  by  his  followers,  and  knew  that  the  Crusade 
had  failed,  "  My  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?" 
(Ps.  xxii.,  verse  i).  After  the  battle  of  Agincourt 
(141 5)  the  English  army,  fresh  from  victory,  sang  on 
bended  knees  the  first  verse  of  Psalm  cxv.  ("  Not 
unto  us,  O  Lord,  not  unto  us,  but  unto  thy  Name 
give  the  praise  "),  which  Henry  iv.  had  given  to 
his  son  as  a  motto  when  he  called  him  to  a  share  in 
the  government  of  his  kingdom.     It  was  a  psalm 

'  Henry  IV.,  Part  I.  Act  I.  scene  i. 


86  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

that  reminded  the  victor  of  his  hfelong  ambition. 
As  Psalm  H.  was  read  to  Henry  v.  on  his  deathbed, 
verse  i8,  "  O  be  favourable  and  gracious  unto  vSion  ; 
build  thou  the  walls  of  Jerusalem,"  reminded  the 
dying  king  of  his  cherished  hope  of  rescuing  the 
Holy  City  from  the  hands  of  the  Mussulman. 

More  strongly  political  than  the  Holy  War  in 
Palestine,  were  the  struggles  by  which  Spain  was 
wrested  from  the  Moors,  or  Russia  from  its  Mongol 
oppressors,  and  from  each  may  be  quoted  instances 
of  the  use  of  the  Psalms. 

Adelme,  Abbot  of  the  Benedictine  house  of 
Chaise-Dieu,  accompanied  the  army  of  Alphonso  the 
Valiant,  first  King  of  Castile,  who  in  1085  had  driven 
the  Moors  from  Toledo.  At  the  passage  of  the 
Tagus,  the  Christian  soldiers  recoiled  from  entering 
the  swollen  flood.  But  Adelme,  mounted  on  his 
ass,  rode  into  the  stream,  singing  the  7th  verse  of 
Ps.  XX.,  "  Some  put  their  trust  in  chariots,  and  some 
in  horses  ;  but  we  will  remember  the  Name  of  the 
Lord  our  God."  His  courage  shamed  the  hesitating 
soldiers  ;  they  plunged  into  the  stream,  and  the 
whole  Christian  army  crossed  the  river.  The  final 
stage  of  the  struggle  was  reached  in  1510,  when 
Cardinal  Ximenes  in  full  pontificals  led  the  Spanish 
troops  against  the  Moors  at  Oran.  The  town  was 
captured,  and  the  victorious  cardinal  rode  through 
the  streets,  chanting  Ps.  cxv.,  "  Not  unto  us,  O 
Lord,  not  unto  us,  but  unto  thy  Name  give  the 
praise." 

In  the  latter  half  of  the  fourteenth  century,  the 
young  Demetrius,  as  a  child  of  twelve,  became 
Grand  Prince  of  Russia,  with  Moscow  for  his  capital 
(1363).  Two  centuries  were  yet  to  elapse  before 
Ivan  the  Terrible  was  crowned  and  anointed  first 
Czar  of  Muscovy.  But  it  was  under  the  youthful 
Demetrius,  known  from  his  victor}^  by  the  title  of 
"  the  Don,"  that  Russia  made  her  first  great  step 
towards  national  independence  and  national  unity. 


DEMETRIUS  OF  THE  DON  87 

In  1380,  the  Tartar  hordes,  leaving  blackened  soli- 
tudes in  their  rear,  were  advancing  upon  Moscow. 
For  Russia,  enervated  by  Mongol  domination,  torn 
by  civil  discord,  hard  pressed  on  her  western  borders, 
and  menaced  by  invasion  from  the  east,  the  crisis 
was  supreme.  The  issue  seemed  inevitable.  But 
it  was  as  a  Holy  War  that  resistance  was  preached. 
Blessed  by  Sergius,  the  hermit  of  the  Holy  Trinity, 
Demetrius  advanced  to  meet  Mamai  and  the  Mongol 
invaders  on  the  banks  of  the  Don  (September  8, 
1380).  If  his  heart  quailed  at  the  numbers  of  the 
enemy,  it  was  with  a  psalm  that  he  renewed  his 
courage.  After  reading  aloud  Ps.  xlvi.,  "  God  is 
our  refuge  and  strength,"  he  plunged  into  the  fight, 
which  ended  in  the  total  defeat  of  the  Tartars  at 
Koulikoff.  The  memory  of  the  victory  lives  in 
contemporary  literature,  in  pictures  and  sculptures, 
in  the  Donskoi  and  Simonoff  monasteries,  and  in 
the  legends  with  which  national  gratitude  has 
surrounded  the  names  of  Sergius  and  of  Demetrius 
of  the  Don. 

In  their  devotional  aspect  the  Crusades,  like 
pilgrimages,  had  developed  a  reverential  love  for 
the  scenes  of  Our  Lord's  hfe  on  earth.  In  theory  at 
least,  the  Pope  represented  the  moral  grandeur  of 
mankind,  and,  in  the  struggle  between  the  Papacy 
and  the  Empire,  was  asserted  the  claim  of  the  spirit 
to  supremacy  over  the  flesh.  Meanwhile  the  mil- 
lennium had  come  and  gone,  and,  with  its  passing, 
hopes  of  the  future  of  humanity  were  revived. 
On  these  and  other  sides,  men's  minds  were  disposed 
to  religious  revivals  and  religious  reforms,  like  those 
associated  with  the  Cistercian  or  Franciscan  Orders. 
With  the  need  came  the  men.  St.  Bernard,  by  his 
character  and  genius,  exemplified  in  practice  the 
principles  which  he  maintained,  and  embodied  them 
in  a  personality  at  once  winning  and  commanding. 
Free,  in  its  simplicity  and  purity,  from  religious  or 
secular  politics,  the   Cistercian  reform  was,  in  its 


88  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

early  stages,  the  spiritual  movement  which  the 
Christian  world  was  demanding.  In  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Cistercians  in  England  may  be  traced, 
broadly  and  strongly,  the  influence  of  the 
Psalms. 

The  second  founder  of  the  Order  was  Stephen 
Harding  (1066-1134),  a  monk  of  the  Benedictine 
house  of  Sherborne.  It  is  significant  that,  as  he 
made  his  pilgrim's  journey  to  Rome  through  city, 
forest,  or  mountain  pass,  he  daily  recited  the  whole 
Psalter.  On  his  return,  as  he  passed  through  the 
diocese  of  Langres  in  Burgundy,  he  came  on  a  cluster 
of  huts,  surrounding  a  wooden  oratory  on  the  slope 
of  a  hill  above  the  river  Leignes.  It  was  the  newly 
founded  (1075)  Benedictine  monastery  of  Molesme. 
Fascinated  by  the  solitude  of  the  spot,  attracted  by 
the  poverty  and  strictness  of  the  brethren,  he  en- 
tered the  community.  Time  passed.  The  monastery 
grew  wealthy,  and  relaxed  its  discipline.  In  vain 
Abbot  Robert,  Prior  Alberic,  and  Stephen  Harding 
struggled  to  revive  the  ancient  spirit.  At  last  they 
determined  to  leave  Molesme,  and  with  twenty-one 
brethren,  the  three  leaders  settled  (1098)  at  Citeaux, 
in  the  marshy  glade  of  a  wild  forest.  Here,  on 
the  death  of  Alberic  (i  109),  Stephen  was  chosen  the 
third  Abbot  of  Citeaux,  and  here  he  framed  the 
Rule  of  the  Cistercian  Order. 

Poverty,  solitude,  and  simplicity  were  the  essence 
of  the  reform  which  the  Order  initiated .  The  brethren 
were  thus  members  of  a  militant  community,  in 
warfare  with  worldliness,  luxury,  and  insincerity, 
both  in  Church  and  State.  Unhke  the  Benedictines, 
they  were  compactly  organised.  They  were  not 
isolated  monastic  homes,  which  might  relapse  un- 
noticed from  their  high  ideals.  Careful  provision 
was  made  for  the  periodical  visitation  and  inspec- 
tion of  all  the  dependencies  of  Citeaux,  as  well  as  of 
Citeaux  itself.  The  dress  was  of  the  simplest ;  but, 
as  the  black  scapular  fell  over  the  white  tunic,  it 


THE  CISTERCIAN  MONKS  89 

seemed  to  the  brethren  that  they  bore  in  daily  life 
the  Cross  of  Christ.  Their  life  was  to  be  passed 
in  sequestered  villages,  in  hard  manual  toil  among 
vineyards  or  cornfields,  or  in  that  meditation  which 
"  gathers  itself  from  earthly  things  to  contemplate 
God."  Their  scanty  food — a  daily  portion  of  bread 
and  two  messes  of  vegetables — was  earned  byT:the 
sweat  of  the  brow.  They  possessed  no  property 
which  had  ever  belonged  to  the  parochial  clergy. 
Their  churches  were  severely  simple,  but  filled  with 
the  austere  perfection  of  form  and  outline.  Their 
music  was  the  Gregorian  chant,  sung  in  unison  by 
grave  masculine  voices.  Instead  of  crucifixes  of 
gold  or  silver,  a  crucifix  of  painted  wood  was  alone 
allowed.  Sculptures,  pictures,  gorgeous  vestments 
were  banished.  As  in  the  church,  so  in  the  scrip- 
torium. Illuminated  figures,  elaborate  capitals, 
marginal  arabesques,  were  alike  forbidden. 

In  the  bareness,  severity,  and  simplicity  of  their 
religious  life,  the  Cistercians  made  no  appeal  to 
imagination.  For  fifteen  years  no  novices  were 
attracted  to  the  marshy  solitude  of  Citeaux.  It 
seemed  as  though  the  new  community  would  perish 
with  the  deaths  of  its  first  founders.  But  Stephen 
Harding  persevered  in  his  resolution.  If  any  novices 
came,  they  would  be  men  of  the  right  stamp.  At 
last  his  confidence  was  rewarded.  In  11 13,  thirty 
men,  headed  by  Bernard,  and  belonging  to  the 
noblest  families  of  Burgundy,  entered  Citeaux  as 
novices.  The  "  barren  woman  "  was  made  "  to 
keep  house,  and  to  be  a  joyful  mother  of  children  " 
(cxiii.  8).  In  1 1 1 5  had  been  established  the  daughter 
houses  of  La  Ferte,  Pontign}^  Morimond,  and 
Clairvaux,  with  Bernard  as  its  first  abbot.  From 
each  there  sprang  a  whole  line  of  monasteries. 

In  the  Cistercian  cloisters  was  thus  planted  a  vine, 
which  spread  its  branches  far  and  wide,  and  bore 
fruit  in  many  lands.  A  new  life  was  breathed  into 
the  monasteries  of  Europe.     In  1128,  the  first  Cis- 


90  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

tercians  settled  in  England,  at  Waverley,  in  Surrey. 
A  little  later,  another  body  of  monks,  sent  by 
Bernard  himself,  found  a  home  on  the  banks  of  the 
Rye  in  Yorkshire,  where  now  stands  the  Ruins  of 
the  Abbey  of  Rievaux.  A  third  was  established  at 
Fountains  ;  and  the  story  of  the  foundation,  as 
told  by  the  Monk  Serlo  and  Hugh  of  Kirkstall,  is 
almost  clothed  in  the  language  of  the  Psalms. 

The  fame  of  the  Cistercians  spread  abroad  through 
the  cloisters  of  Northern  England,  It  penetrated 
within  the  precincts  of  the  Benedictine  Abbey  of 
St.  Mary  at  York,  where  lived  many  men  who  walked 
honestly  in  the  tradition  of  their  predecessors,  but 
fell  short  of  the  Cistercian  discipline.  The  piety 
of  the  newcomers  woke  the  Benedictines  from  their 
lethargy  ;  it  stirred  their  dormant  energies.  They 
chafed  at  their  sojourning  "  in  the  tents  of  Kedar," 
sickened  of  the  flesh-pots  of  Egypt,  wearied  of  the 
fret  and  fever  of  men  and  cities,  sighed  for  "  the 
wings  of  the  dove,"  that  they  "  might  flee  away,  and 
be  at  rest."  They  longed  to  wander  "  far  off,  and 
remain  in  the  wilderness  "  (Ps.  Iv.,  verses  6,  7). 

Chief  of  the  men  who  were  thus  moved  by  the 
example  of  the  Cistercians  was  Richard,  the  sacrist 
of  the  house .  He  and  six  of  his  brethren ,  like-minded 
with  himself,  entered  into  a  bond  that  they  would 
seek  a  stricter  life,  and  atone  for  past  remissness  by 
a  severer  disciphne.  But  they  dared  not  reveal 
their  purpose  to  the  prior,  lest  he  should  bring  their 
design  to  nothing.  Their  fears  were  without  cause. 
Prior  Richard  had  felt  the  same  stirring,  and  formed 
the  same  purpose .  He  gladly  associated  himself  with 
the  others,  whose  numbers  presently  rose  to  thirteen 
men  of  but  "  one  heart  and  one  soul."  They  longed 
to  depart  from  the  convent,  and  to  be  grafted  on  the 
fruitful  vine  of  the  Cistercian  Order. 

But  their  design  became  known  to  other  members 
of  the  house,  and  reached  the  ears  of  the  aged 
Abbot  Godfrey.     He  charged  them  to  give  up  an 


FOUNDATION  OF  FOUNTAINS  ABBEY  91 

undertaking  that  cast  a  slur  upon  their  Order.  He 
even  threatened  punishment,  if  they  persisted. 
Within  the  convent  they  were  treated  as  traitors  and 
as  rebels,  and  it  was  only  by  taking  refuge  within 
the  church  and  by  appealing  to  Turstin,  Archbishop 
of  York,  that  they  escaped  violence.  In  1132,  the 
thirteen  associates  passed  through  the  gates  of  the 
abbey  in  the  train  of  Turstin,  who  begged  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  to  protect  them,  as 
Legate  of  the  Apostolic  See.  Their  only  desire,  he 
urged,  was  to  follow,  in  their  fullest  meaning,  the 
vows  of  their  profession.  The  spirit  of  God,  he 
says,  speaks  by  the  mouth  of  the  Psalmist.  "  Pro- 
mise unto  the  Lord  your  God,  and  keep  it  ;  pay  thy 
vows  unto  the  most  Highest  (Ixxvi.  1 1  and  1. 14);  I  will 
pay  thee  my  vows  which  I  promised  with  my  lips." 
The  luxury  of  their  surroundings  had  choked  their 
spiritual  aspirations .  They  longed  to  flee  from  the  fate 
of  the  Israelites  in  the  desert,  who  "  did  eat  and  were 
filled,  for  He  gave  them  their  own  desire  ;  they  were 
not  disappointed  of  their  lust."  If  these  men  felt 
that  they  could  not  live  uprightly  so  long  as  they 
stayed  where  they  were,  it  was  wTong  to  compel 
them  to  remain.  "  God,"  he  continues,  "  who  is  our 
hope  and  strength,  a  very  present  help  in  trouble," 
was  making  them  a  way  to  escape.  Was  not  their 
longing  to  withdraw  from  the  world  like  that  of 
David,  when  he  yearned  to  escape  from  the  clash 
of  arms  and  the  tumult  of  the  people  :  "  Lo,  then 
would  I  get  me  away  far  off,  and  remain  in  the 
wilderness  "  (Ps.  Iv.,  verse  7)  ? 

Whether  the  legate  intervened,  or  not,  is  un- 
certain. But,  in  December  1132,  Turstin  himself 
took  the  brethren  with  him  to  celebrate  the  Nativity 
on  his  great  manorial  domains  at  Ripon.  The  next 
day,  he  led  them  along  the  valley  of  the  Skell  to  a 
narrow  glen,  in  a  tangled  thicket  of  thorns  and 
brushwood,  overhung  by  the  hill  of  Herles-how. 
Here  he  left  them,  after  giving  them  his  blessing, 


92  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

and  confirming  their  election  of  Prior  Richard  as 
their  first  abbot. 

The  new  abbot  had  monks,  but  no  monastery. 
He  had  "  nowhere  to  lay  his  head,"  no  hiding-place 
in  which  to  escape  the  "  stormy  wind  and  tempest  " 
(Ps.  Iv.,  verse  8).  Beneath  an  elm,  which  at  the 
time  of  the  dissolution  of  the  monasteries  was  still 
standing,  the  brethren  thatched  a  shelter  to  serve 
as  church  and  home,  and  betook  themselves  to  their 
labours,  plaiting  mats,  gathering  sticks,  cutting 
stakes,  and  enclosing  a  garden.  So  the  winter 
passed.  The  new  community  had  had  time  to 
consider  their  future  mode  of  life  and  form  of 
discipline.  They  determined  to  send  to  Bernard 
himself,  narrating  their  simple  history,  and  telling 
him  that  they  had  adopted  the  Cistercian  Rule,  had 
chosen  him  as  their  spiritual  father  and  Clairvaux 
as  their  nursing  mother.  When  Bernard  heard  the 
story  of  the  two  brethren,  who  were  sent  to  him,  he 
exclaimed,  "  It  is  the  finger  of  God.  Would  that  I 
myself  could  come  over,  and  behold  this  exalted  spec- 
tacle, which  makes  '  glad  '  the  whole  '  city  of  God  '  " 
(Ps.  xlvi.,  verse  4).  His  letter  was  carried  to  the 
monks  of  Fountains  by  a  monk  of  Clairvaux,  who 
was  charged  to  instruct  them  in  the  Cistercian  Rule. 
Thus  was  founded  the  great  house  of  Fountains. 

Years  passed,  and  as  the  Benedictine  fervour  had 
cooled  from  its  early  glow,  so  the  Cistercian  discipline 
lost  its  pristine  simphcit}^  Even  at  their  highest, 
the  ideal  of  both  had  been  the  withdrawal  from  the 
world.  Cloisters  were  the  realisation  of  the  beata 
solitudo  and  the  sola  beatitudo.  To  timid  anxious 
souls,  the  inviolable  sanctuaries  of  monastic  life 
seemed  the  only  refuge  from  the  pillage  and  pesti- 
lence which  wasted  the  fields,  the  only  barrier  against 
the  stagnant  mass  of  squalor,  famine,  and  disease 
that  festered  in  the  towns.  The  times  were  evil. 
In  the  tearful  passion  of  the  Stabat  Mater,  as  in  the 
austere  grandeur  of  the  Dies  Irce,  were  expressed 


FRANCIS  OF  ASSISI  93 

the  fears  and  forebodings  of  the  age.  But  hope  was 
mingled  with  terror.  Europe  seemed  to  be  thrilled 
by  a  common  movement,  and  Gioacchino  di  Fiore, 
the  Calabrian  seer,  expressed  the  popular  instinct, 
that  the  dawn  was  whitening  with  the  glory  of  a 
day  which  should  usher  in  the  "  age  of  the  spirit," 
the  "  age  of  love,"  the  "  age  of  hlies." 

Such  were  the  thoughts  with  which  the  air  of 
Italy  was  charged,  when  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  grew 
to  manhood  (i  182-1226).  Artless,  almost  infantine, 
in  the  simplicity  of  his  nature,  he  was  the  gentlest 
and  most  blameless  of  mankind — the  saint  and  the 
poet  of  a  poetic  people.  From  the  moment  that  he 
took  Poverty  for  his  bride,  and  consecrated  his  life 
to  Christ,  no  temptation  ever  allured  him  from  his 
inviolate  fidelity.  Active  love,  not  contemplative 
piety,  was  the  soul  of  his  rehgion  ;  practical  life, 
not  the  seclusion  of  the  cloister,  was  the  sphere  of 
its  exercise.  The  father  of  the  poor,  the  nurse  of 
the  leper,  he  had  the  faith  to  see  the  Divine  image, 
and  the  charity  to  love  it,  even  in  its  most  neglected 
and  repulsive  tenements.  Though  his  Brothers 
Minor  developed  into  an  Order,  it  was  as  a  protest 
against  the  monastic  spirit  that  they  were  originally 
founded,  and  it  was  only  so  long  as  the  Lady  Poverty 
walked  among  the  sunburned  hills  of  Umbria  with 
a  free  step  by  the  side  of  Chastity,  and  carolled  hymns 
with  Obedience,  that  the  institution  exemplified  the 
idea  of  its  founder. 

The  call  of  Francis  came  to  him  in  the  words  of 
the  Gospel.  It  is  recorded  of  him  in  Brother  Leo's 
Legend  of  the  Saint,  that  Francis  refused  to  allow 
a  novice  the  use  of  a  Psalter,  lest  he  should  then 
ask  for  a  Breviary,  and,  having  received  a  Breviary, 
should  sit  in  a  chair  like  a  great  prelate,  and  say  to 
his  brother,  "  Brother,  fetch  me  my  Breviary." 
But  the  same  biographer  again  and  again  illustrates 
the  saint's  great  love  of  the  Psalms.  Thus  he  ever 
walked   upon   stones   "  with   great   trembling   and 


94  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

reverence  "  for  the  love  of  Him  that  is  called  "  the 
Rock,"  repeating  the  words,  "  Thou  didst  set  my 
feet  upon  the  rock  "  (Ps.  xl.,  verse  2).  On  Psalm 
cxlviii.  is  modelled  his  Canticle  of  the  Sun,  in  which 
he  sums  up  his  love  towards  all  created  things,  and 
especially  towards  those  in  which  he  saw  a  figure  of 
anything  pertaining  to  God  or  religion. 

"  Most  high,  almighty,  and  excellent  Lord,  to 
Thee  be  praise  and  glory  and  honour,  and  all 
blessing  !  To  Thee  alone.  Most  High,  do  they 
belong,  and  no  man  is  worthy  to  name  Thy  name. 

"  Praised  be  Thou,  my  Lord,  with  all  Thy 
creatures,  and,  above  all,  our  Brother  the  Sun,  who 
brings  to  us  the  light  and  the  day.  Beautiful  is 
he,  and  radiant  in  his  glorious  splendour  ;  and  to 
us.  Most  High,  he  beareth  witness  of  Thee. 

"  Praised  be  Thou,  my  Lord,  for  our  Sister  the 
Moon,  and  for  all  the  Stars.  In  the  heavens  Thou 
has  set  them,  bright  and  precious  and  beautiful. 

"  Praised  be  Thou,  my  Lord,  for  our  Brother  the 
Wind,  for  the  air,  the  cloud,  the  calm,  and  all 
weather,  whereby  Thou  sustainest  life  in  all  Thy 
creatures. 

"  Praised  be  Thou,  my  Lord,  for  our  Sister  the 
Water,  for  manifold  are  her  services,  and  she  is 
humble,  precious,  and  pure. 

"  Praised  be  Thou,  my  Lord,  for  our  Brother  the 
Fire,  By  him  Thou  dost  lighten  our  darkness. 
Beautiful  is  he,  joyful,  very  mighty,  and  strong. 

"  Praised  be  Thou,  my  Lord,  for  our  Sister, 
mother  Earth,  who  doth  sustain  and  nourish  us, 
and  bringeth  forth  in  abundance  divers  fruits, 
flowers  of  many  colours,  and  grass. 

"  Praised  be  Thou,  my  Lord,  for  those  who  for 
love  of  Thee,  forgive  their  enemies,  and  endure  weak- 
ness and  tribulation.  Yea,  blessed  are  those  who 
shall  continue  in  peace,  for  by  Thee,  Most  High, 
shall  they  be  crowned. 

"  Praised  be  Thou,  my  Lord,  for  our  Sister,  the 


THE  CANTICLE  OF  THE  SUN  95 

Death  of  the  body,  from  whom  no  hving  man  can 
escape.  Woe  to  those  who  die  in  mortal  sin  ! 
Blessed  are  they  who  are  conformed  to  Thy  most 
holy  will,  for  the  second  death  shall  have  no  power 
to  hurt  them. 

"  Praise  and  bless  my  Lord  !  give  thanks  to  Him 
and  serve  Him  with  all  humbleness  of  heart."  ' 

This  was  the  song  that  the  brethren  chanted  to 
the  dying  man,  while,  above  the  house  where  he  lay, 
multitudes  of  crested  larks,  circling  round  the  thatch, 
"  by  their  sweet  singing  did  seem  to  be  praising  the 
Lord  along  with  him."  As  he  had  lived,  so  he  died 
— in  the  arms  of  his  Lady  Poverty,  stripped  of  his 
clothing,  and  laid  on  the  bare  ground.  Psalms  were 
sung  to  him,  and  from  time  to  time  he  added  his 
voice  to  the  voices  of  his  brethren,  returning  with 
special  fondness  to  Psalm  cxlii.  :  "  I  cried  unto  the 
Lord  with  my  voice  ;  yea,  even  unto  the  Lord  did 
I  make  my  supplication,"  etc.  At  nightfall,  on 
October  3,  1226,  he  passed  away. 

Hitherto  the  influence  of  the  Psalms  has  been 
illustrated  from  religious  or  semi-ecclesiastical 
history  ;  but  examples  are  not  wanting  in  the  more 
purely  secular  history  of  the  Middle  Ages.  They 
moulded  public  opinion,  and  created  a  standard  of 
civil  government.  With  them  are  associated  scenes 
in  the  lives  or  deaths  of  Wilham  the  Conqueror, 
Vladimir  Monomachus,  David  i.  of  Scotland, 
Abelard  and  Heloise,  St.  Louis  of  France,  and 
WilHam  Wallace. 

Wilham  the  Conqueror  died  in  September  1087, 
in     circumstances     which     moved     the     historian, 

1  The  text  will  be  found  in  Sabatier's  Life  of  St.  Francis  of  Assist 
(tr.  L.  S.  Houghton,  1896,  adopting  M.  Arnold's  version),  pp. 
304-5  : 

"  Altissimu,  omnipotente,  bon  signore, 
tue  so  le  laude  la  gloria  e  I'onore,"  etc. 

An  English  verse  translation  is  given  in  A    Vision  of  Saints,  by 
Lewis  Morris,  "  Saint  Francis  of  Assisi." 


96  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

Ordericus  Vitalis,  to  moralise  in  the  language  of  the 
Psalms.  The  aggressions  of  Phihp  of  France,  and, 
as  the  story  runs,  the  jest  which  he  had  aimed  at  the 
unwieldy  size  of  the  English  king,  aroused  the  latter's 
wrath.  Claiming  as  his  own  the  borderland  of 
France  and  Normandy,  William  swore  by  the 
resurrection  and  splendour  of  God,  that  he  would 
light  a  hundred  thousand  candles  at  the  expense  of 
Phihp.  He  kept  his  word.  Cornfields,  vineyards, 
and  orchards  blazed  up  to  the  gates  of  Mantes,  and 
the  border  fortress  itself  lay  a  heap  of  burning  ashes. 
In  his  hour  of  triumph,  William  received  his  death- 
wound.  His  horse,  stumbling  among  the  embers, 
threw  the  king  upon  the  iron  pommel  of  his  saddle 
with  such  force  that  he  received  a  fatal  injury. 
Carried  to  Rouen  to  die,  he  caused  himself  to  be  con- 
veyed from  the  noise  of  the  city  to  the  Abbey  of 
St.  Gervais.  In  the  early  morning  of  September  9, 
the  great  bell  of  the  cathedral  went  for  prime.  The 
king  asked  what  it  meant.  When  he  received  the 
answer,  he  stretched  forth  his  arms,  raised  his  eyes 
to  heaven,  commended  himself  to  his  Lady  Mary, 
the  Holy  Mother  of  God,  that,  by  her  intercession, 
she  would  reconcile  him  to  her  dear  Son,  Jesus 
Christ,  and  so  breathed  his  last.  His  attendants 
hastily  mounted  their  horses,  and  rode  at  speed  to 
secure  their  houses  and  lands.  His  servants,  after 
stripping  the  body  of  the  dead  king,  made  off,  "  like 
kites  with  their  prey."  "  In  a  house  not  his  own, 
foully  stripped  by  his  servants,  there  lay  on  the  bare 
floor,  from  the  first  to  the  third  hour  of  the  day,  the 
body  of  the  mighty  king,  whom,  but  now,  a  hundred 
thousand  warriors  had  eagerly  served,  and  before 
whom  many  nations  had  trembled  in  fear."  "  Put 
not  your  trust  in  princes,"  moraUses  the  chronicler, 
Ordericus  Vitalis,  whose  pages  teem  w^ith  passages 
from  the  Psalms,  "  which  are  nought,  O  ye  sons  of 
men  ;  but  in  God,  the  Living  and  the  True,  who  is 
the  Maker  of  all.     If  riches  increase,  set  not  your 


VLADIMIR  OF  RUSSIA  97 

heart  upon  them.  For  all  flesh  is  grass,  and  all  the 
glory  of  it  as  the  flower  of  grass.  The  grass  withereth, 
and  the  flower  thereof  fadeth  away  ;  but  the  word 
of  the  Lord  endureth  for  ever." 

With  the  baptism  of  St.  Vladimir  at  Cherson,  and 
that  of  his  whole  people,  in  the  waters  of  the 
Dnieper  at  Kieff,  in  988,  had  begun  the  history  of 
Russia.  A  century  later,  in  Vladimir  Monomachus, 
who  is  said  to  have  married,  as  his  first  wife  Gytha, 
the  daughter  of  Harold  of  England,  Russia  came  into 
contact  with  the  remotest  power  of  Western  Europe. 
When,  in  11 13,  Vladimir  became  the  Great  Prince 
at  Kieff,  he  was  instructed  by  the  Patriarch  Nice- 
phorus  in  his  duties  as  a  ruler.  The  lesson  was  a 
comment  on  Ps.  ci.,  with  an  exhortation  to  get  it  by 
heart,  to  recite  it  often,  to  meditate  upon  it,  and 
by  it  to  fashion  his  government.  "  My  song,"  so 
begins  the  letter,  "  shall  be  of  the  duties  of  my 
station  ;  of  mercy  and  judgment  ;  first,  of  mercy, 
that  is,  of  tender  fatherly  care  for  the  welfare, 
spiritual,  moral,  and  temporal,  of  all  my  subjects  ; 
and  then,  also,  of  judgment,  that  is,  of  doing  true 
justice  between  man  and  man,  of  the  restraint  of 
wickedness  and  vice,  and  of  the  punishment  of 
wrongdoers,  both  for  their  own  chastisement  and 
for  the  good  of  their  fellows.  Unto  Thee,  O  Lord, 
will  I  sing.  Unto  Thee  will  I  lift  up  my  heart  in 
meditation.  I  will  not  follow  any  other  guide  in 
my  rule,  I  will  not  look  to  the  tempter,  though  he 
offer  me  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  ;  nor  to  the 
idols  of  ambition,  glory,  praise  of  men,  love  of 
country,  civilisation,  knowledge,  progress  ;  nor  yet 
to  any  selfish  motives  of  pleasure,  passion,  ease. 
But,  with  fear  and  love,  will  I  offer  my  thoughts,  my 
motives,  my  designs,  my  deeds,  my  meditations,  my 
prayers  unto  Thee,  O  Lord  ;  for  Thou  art  my  King 
and  my  God,  and  I  am  Thy  servant.  For  Thy  sake 
only,  and  because  it  is  Thy  will,  I  will  strive,  with 
Thy  help,  to  rule  my  fellow-men,  my  brethren,  whom 


98  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

otherwise  I  would  choose  to  serve.  So  shall  I  have 
understanding  in  the  way  of  godliness." 

In  the  spirit  of  the  psalm  Vladimir  ruled  his 
subjects.  With  all  his  faults,  there  burned  within 
him  a  spark  of  manly  goodness,  which  lights  up  his 
dying  injunctions  to  his  son,  and  draws  its  heat  from 
the  Psalter.  After  describing  the  wonders  of  crea- 
tion and  the  goodness  of  the  Creator,  in  the  words  of 
David,  Vladimir  thus  proceeds  :  "  Praise  God  and 
love  men.  Neither  fasting,  nor  solitude,  nor  monas- 
tic life  will  bring  you  life  eternal  ;  but  doing  good 
alone.  Forget  not  the  poor  ;  feed  them.  Remem- 
ber that  all  riches  come  from  God,  and  are  given  you 
but  for  a  while.  ...  Be  fathers  to  the  fatherless  ; 
judge  the  cause  of  widows  ;  suffer  not  the  strong 
to  oppress  the  weak.  .  .  .  My  brethren  said  to  me, 
'  Help  us  to  drive  out  the  sons  of  Rostislaf,  or  else 
give  up  our  alliance.'  But  I  said,  '  I  cannot  forget 
that  I  have  kissed  the  Cross.'  Then  I  opened  the 
Book  of  Psalms,  and  read  there  with  deep  stirring 
of  the  heart,  '  Why  art  thou  so  vexed,  O  my  soul, 
and  why  art  thou  so  disquieted  within  me  ?  Put 
thy  trust  in  God.  I  will  confess  my  faults,  and  He  is 
gracious.'  " 

Peter  Abelard,  in  1114,  was  the  most  famous 
teacher  in  Paris,  then  the  most  renowned  school  in 
Europe.  The  idol  of  the  city,  he  had  reached  the 
pinnacle  of  worldly  success.  Then  began  his  fatal 
passion  for  Heloise.  The  lovers  were  separated  ; 
on  Abelard  a  barbarous  vengeance  was  taken,  and 
Heloise  was  immured  in  a  convent.  It  is  doubtful 
whether  they  ever  met  again. 

On  the  banks  of  the  Ardusson,  in  a  quiet  side- 
valley,  twelve  miles  from  Troyes,  Abelard  built  the 
oratory  of  the  Paraclete.  There  he  passed  several 
years,  till,  in  1 125,  he  was  invited  to  be  abbot  of  the 
ancient  Abbey  of  St.  Gildas  de  Rhuys,  near  Vannes. 
He  accepted  the  offer,  moved,  perhaps,  by  memories 
of  his  boyish  studies  at  the  dependent  monastery 


HELOiSE  AND  ABELARD  99 

of  Locmenach.  Meanwhile  Heloise  and  her  nuns 
had  been  driven  from  Argenteuil.  When  Abelard 
heard  that  she  was  a  wanderer  once  more,  he  made 
over  to  her  and  her  nuns  his  deserted  hermitage  of 
Paraclete.  There,  by  "  Paraclete's  white  walls  and 
silver  springs,"  the  love  of  Heloise  for  Abelard  once 
more  broke  silence.  Pope  was  right  in  thinking  that 
her  life  could  never  have  been 

"  The  blameless  vestal's  lot, 
The  world  forgetting,  by  the  world  forgot  "  ; 

that  Abelard 's  image  may  have  often  stolen  between 
her  and  her  God  ;  that  she  may  have  heard  his  voice 
in  every  psalm,  or  dropped  with  every  bead  too 
"  soft  a  tear."  But  be  this  as  it  may,  Abelard's 
mournful  autobiography,  the  Historia  Calamitatum, 
fell  into  her  hands.  The  grave  of  her  past  was  re- 
opened by  the  story  of  his  sufferings,  and  Heloise 
wrote  to  "  her  lord,  yea,  her  father  ;  to  her  husband, 
yea,  her  brother  ;  from  his  handmaid,  yea,  daughter  ; 
from  his  wife,  yea,  his  sister  ;  to  Abelard  from 
Heloise."  Abelard  answers  her  tender  words,  if 
the  letters  are  genuine,  in  the  language  of  a  man 
to  whom  all  earthly  things  had  grown  cold  and 
colourless.  To  her  second  letter  he  replies  by 
sending,  at  her  request,  rules  for  her  convent.  At 
the  close  of  his  answer,  he  exhorts  her  to  patience 
and  resignation,  concluding  with  a  prayer,  in  which 
he  betrays  the  depth  of  his  own  feeling,  and 
definitely  quotes  from  the  Psalter  : 

"  Forgive,  O  most  Merciful  !  forgive,  O  Mercy 
itself  !  our  sins,  great  as  they  are  ;  and  may  the 
multitude  of  our  offences  know  the  height  and 
breadth  of  Thy  unspeakable  clemency.  Chastise 
the  guilty  here,  that  Thou  mayest  spare  them  here- 
after. Punish  them  for  a  time,  that  Thou  mayest 
spare  them  for  eternity.  Use  against  Thy  servants 
the  rod  of  correction,  not  the  sword  of  wrath. 
Afflict  the  body,  that  Thou  mayest  save  the  soul. 


100  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

Cleanse,  avenge  not  ;  be  gentle  rather  than  just  ; 
a  merciful  Father,  rather  than  an  austere  Lord. 
*  Examine  us,  O  Lord,  and  prove  us,'  as  the  prophet 
asked  for  himself  (Ps.  xxvi.  2).  It  is  as  if  he  said, 
'  Examine  the  strength  there  is,  and  suit  the  burden 
of  temptation  to  it.'  .  .  .  Thou  hast  joined  us,  O 
Lord,  and  hast  set  us  apart,  when  it  pleased  Thee, 
and  as  it  pleased  Thee.  Now,  O  Lord,  that  which 
Thou  hast  begun  in  mercy,  do  Thou  in  mercy  perfect, 
and  those  whom  Thou  hast  severed  in  the  world, 
join  for  ever  unto  Thyself  in  Heaven.  O  Lord,  our 
hope,  our  portion,  our  expectation,  our  consolation, 
who  art  blessed  for  ever.     Amen. 

"  Farewell  in  Christ,  thou  Spouse  of  Light,  in 
Christ  farewell,  in  Christ  live  !     Amen." 

Contemporary  with  Vladimir  Monomachus  and 
with  Abelard,  was  David  i.,  the  just  and  merciful 
ruler  of  Scotland,  who  died  May  24,  11 53.  As 
iElred  of  Rievaulx  tells  the  story  of  his  death,  the 
king  received  the  viaticum,  venerated  the  famous 
black  cross,  and  spent  his  last  hours  of  conscious 
existence  in  repeating  verses  from  the  Psalms  : 
"  I  deal  with  the  thing  that  is  lawful  and  right : 
O  give  me  not  over  unto  mine  oppressors  " 
(Ps.  cxix.,  verse  121),  and  "  In  the  time  of  my 
trouble  I  will  call  upon  thee,  for  thou  hearest  me  " 
(Ps.lxxxvi.,  verse  7). 

By  a  psalm  St.  Louis  of  France  regulated  his  life. 
Before  taking  the  seat  of  judgment,  he  was  wont  to 
repeat  the  words  :  "  Blessed  are  they  that  alway 
keep  judgement,  and  do  righteousness  "  (Ps.  cvi., 
verse  3).  The  Mass  for  the  first  Sunday  in  Advent 
began  with  the  words,  "  Unto  Thee,  O  Lord,  will  I 
lift  up  my  soul;  my  God,  I  have  put  my  trust  in 
thee  "  (Ps.  XXV.,  verse  i).  On  that  day  Louis  was 
crowned  (1226).  Joinville,  who  notes  the  fact,  ob- 
serves that  even  in  his  death  the  king  had  perfect 
trust  in  God.  It  was  with  a  psalm  on  his  lips  that 
Louis  died.     In  July  1270  he  had  taken  the  Cross, 


DEATHS  OF  ST.  LOUIS  AND  OF  WALLACE    loi 

and  embarked  at  Aigues  Mortes  for  Africa.  Before 
the  walls  of  Tunis,  the  climate  and  the  plague  did 
their  deadly  work.  At  last  Louis  ix.  himself  was 
struck  down  by  sickness.  Three  weeks  he  lingered. 
On  August  25,  1270,  laid  on  a  bed  of  ashes,  he 
died,  murmuring  the  words  of  Ps.  v.,  verse  7, 
"  But  as  for  me,  I  will  come  into  thine  house,  even 
upon  the  multitude  of  thy  mercy  ;  and  in  thy  fear 
will  I  worship  toward  thy  holy  temple." 

At  the  execution  of  William  Wallace,  the  dying 
patriot  found  comfort  in  the  Psalter,  which  had  been 
the  companion  of  his  adventurous  wanderings. 
Betrayed  to  the  English  by  the  "  fause  Menteith," 
tried  for  treason  in  Westminster  Hall,  he  was 
executed  at  West  Smithfield  (August  23,  1305) 
with  all  the  barbarities  of  the  age.  As  he  stood  on 
the  scaffold,  in  the  midst  of  the  instruments  for  his 
torture,  he  begged  Lord  Clifford  to  restore  to  him 
the  Psalter,  which  had  been  taken  from  him  at  his 
capture.  The  prayer  was  granted.  Unable  to  hold 
the  book  in  his  chained  hands,  he  asked  a  priest  to 
keep  it  open  for  him,  and  as  he  hung  from  the  gallows, 
he  continued  to  look  on  it  with  love  and  devotion. 
After  he  was  taken  down  and,  still  alive  and  sensible, 
disembowelled,  his  eyes  remained  fixed  upon  the 
Psalter,  until  they  closed  in  death. 

Nor  was  it  only  in  mediaeval  action  that  the 
influence  of  the  Psalms  may  be  traced.  Mediaeval 
thought  also  fell  under  their  spell.  The  science  and 
the  literature  as  well  as  the  history  of  the  Middle 
Ages  felt  their  sway. 

In  mediaeval  science  few  names  stand  higher  than 
that  of  Albertus  Magnus  (i  193-1280),  known  for 
the  width  of  his  learning  as  the  Universal  Doctor. 
Among  the  later  schoolmen  who  strove  to  reconcile 
the  teaching  of  Aristotle  with  Christian  doctrine,  he 
ranks  second  only  to  his  pupil,  Thomas  Aquinas. 
An  eager  student  of  chemistry  and  mechanics,  he 
incurred    the    usual    charge    of   sorcery.     But    his 


I02  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

scientific  pursuits  had  not  weakened  his  love  of  the 
Psalter.  The  spirit  of  all  pra^^er,  he  said,  is  con- 
densed in  Psalm  xxviii.,  verse  i  :  "  Unto  thee  will 
I  cry,  O  Lord  my  strength  ;  think  no  scorn  of  me  ; 
lest,  if  thou  make  as  though  thou  hearest  not,  I  be- 
come like  them  that  go  down  into  the  pit."  This 
was  a  different  use  of  the  Psalms  from  that  to  which 
they  were  turned  by  some  of  his  more  ignorant 
contemporaries.  By  the  Psalms  the  popular  science 
of  the  Middle  Ages  was  to  a  great  extent  governed. 
The  earth,  argued  mediaeval  cosmogonists,  cannot 
be  in  motion,  or  suspended  in  mid-air  ;  rather,  it 
is  firmly  fixed,  for  "  He  hath  made  the  round  world 
so  sure  :  thatit  cannot  be  moved  "  (Ps.xciii.,  verse  2), 
and  "  He  laid  the  foundations  of  the  earth  that  it 
never  should  move  at  any  time  "  (Ps.  civ.,  verse  5). 
And  its  centre  is  Jerusalem.  The  column  in  the 
Holy  City,  at  midday,  casts  no  shadow,  and  "  God 
is  in  the  midst  of  her,  therefore  shall  she  not  be 
removed  "  (Ps.  xlvi.,  verse  5).  On  the  text,  "  Praise 
him,  all  ye  heavens  ;  and  ye  waters  that  are  above 
the  heavens  "  (Ps.  cxlviii.,  verse  4),  were  built 
strange  theories.  Heaven  was  divided  into  two  by 
the  firmament,  which  lay  between  our  atmosphere 
and  the  Paradise  of  God.  Below  the  firmament 
lived  the  angels  ;  above  it  were  the  waters.  Jerome 
held  that  the  waters  were  frozen  ;  Ambrose  believed 
that  the  outside  firmament  was  a  hard  shell,  on  the 
outer  edge  of  which  were  stored  the  waters  ;  some 
thought  that  the  terrestrial  universe  was  surrounded 
by  huge  walls,  on  which  were  supported  the  firma- 
ment and  the  waters  they  contained.  The  purpose 
for  which  the  waters  were  collected  was  disputed. 
It  was  believed  that  they  were  gathered  for  another 
deluge,  or  to  moderate  the  fervent  heat  of  the  heavenly 
bodies,  or  to  lubricate  the  axis  on  which  the  heavens 
moved  round  the  earth.  In  the  air  exhaled  from 
the  earth  were  fire  and  hail,  snow  and  vapours, 
wind  and  storm  (Ps.  cxlviii.,  verse  8).     Earthquakes 


THE  DE  IMITATIONE  CHRIST  I      103 

were  explained  from  Psalm  cxxxv.,  verse  7,  by  the 
winds  being  drawn  from  God's  secret  treasuries,  or 
by  the  motions  of  Leviathan  (Ps.  civ.,  verse  26), 
who,  when  his  tail  is  scorched  by  the  sun,  seeks  to 
seize  it,  and  labours  so  powerfully  that  the  earth  is 
shaken  by  his  efforts.  The  rise  and  fall  of  tides  was 
explained  by  his  drinking  in  and  spewing  out  vast 
volumes  of  water.  With  a  strange  mixture  of  Pagan 
with  Christian  thought,  it  was  supposed  that  the 
powers  of  the  air  could  produce  thunder,  lightning, 
and  rain,  and  against  their  baneful  influences  the 
favourite  exorcism  was  Psalm  civ. 

Of  the  monastic  spirit  in  literature,  the  De 
Imitatione  Christi  is  the  finest  product.  The  writer, 
according  to  some  of  the  best  authorities,  was 
Thomas  Haemmerlein,  called,  as  was  the  custom  of 
the  day,  a  Kempis,  from  the  small  town  of  Kempen, 
near  Dusseldorf.  A  little,  fresh-coloured  man, 
simple  in  worldly  affairs,  shy  and  retiring  in  his 
habits,  too  absent-minded  to  be  long  entrusted  with 
any  practical  part  of  the  government  of  the  Convent 
of  Mount  St.  Agnes,  Thomas  a  Kempis  was  given, 
as  a  biographer  says  of  him,  "  to  the  interior  life 
and  devotion."  In  solitude,  silence,  and  humility, 
he  bowed  himself  before  his  Saviour,  that  so  he 
might  catch  the  faintest  whisper  of  His  voice,  and 
conform  himself,  without  hindrance  of  earthly 
barriers,  to  its  slightest  command.  The  fruit  of 
that  close  personal  communion  is  the  wonderful 
book,  in  which  throbs  the  spiritual  heart  of  mediaeval 
Christianity.  From  the  nature  of  its  subject,  the 
Imitation  might  be  expected  to  rely  mainly  on  the 
New  Testament.  But  in  thought,  feeling,  and 
language,  it  is  largely  based  on  the  Psalter.  "  I 
will  hearken  what  the  Lord  God  will  say  concern- 
ing me  ;  for  he  shall  speak  peace  unto  his  people,  and 
to  his  saints,  that  they  turn  not  again  "  (Ps.  Ixxxv., 
verse  8)  supplies  the  keynote  to  the  third  book,  which 
treats   of   internal    consolation  ;     and    throughout 


104  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

the  whole  work,  the  Psalms  are  more  largely  cited 
than  the  Gospels,  and  the  illustrations  from  the 
Psalter  outnumber  all  the  passages  which  are 
quoted  from  the  four  records  of  Our  Lord's  life  upon 
earth . 

The  religious  calm,  which,  together  with  the  most 
ardent  love,  characterises  the  Imitation,  was  not 
lightly  won.  In  his  Soliloquy  of  the  Soul,  Thomas  a 
Kempis  gives  the  history  of  his  inner  life,  and 
chronicles  the  perplexities  through  which  his  soul 
gained  its  absolute  peace.  The  book  is  in  great 
part  an  impassioned  expansion  of  texts  drawn  from 
the  Psalms,  such  as  :  "  Blessed  be  the  Name  of  his 
Majesty  for  ever  "  (Ps.  Ixxii.,  verse  19)  :  "  All  my 
bones  shall  say.  Lord,  who  is  hke  unto  thee  ?  " 
(Ps.  XXXV.,  verse  10)  :  "  Say  unto  my  soul,  I  am  thy 
salvation  "  (Ps.  xxxv.,  verse  3)  :  "  My  soul  hangeth 
upon  thee  "  (Ps.  Ixiii.,  verse  9)  :  "  Praised  be  God, 
who  hath  not  .  .  .  turned  his  mercy  from  me  " 
(Ps.  Ixvi.,  verse  18). 

Yet  another  illustration  of  the  influence  of  the 
Psalms  upon  devotional  literature  may  be  taken  from 
Thomas's  "  Little  Alphabet  of  the  Monks  in  the 
School  of  Christ,"  a  series  of  short  precepts,  drawn 
up  for  those  who  wished  to  adopt  the  Rule  of  the 
brotherhood  of  the  Canons  Regular.  In  form  it  is 
modelled  on  the  119th  Psalm,  the  initial  letters  of 
the  precepts  running  consecutively  through  the 
alphabet  : 

"  Aspire  to  be  unknown,  and  to  be  accounted  nothing  :  for 
this  is  more  healthful  and  profitable  for  thee  than  the  praise 
of  men. 

"  Be  benevolent  to  all  thy  fellows,  alike  to  the  good  and  to  the 
evil  ;   and  be  burdensome  to  none. 

"  Care  for  it  that  thy  heart  be  kept  from  wandering  thoughts, 
thy  mouth  from  vain  speech,  thy  senses  under  discipline. 

"  Dwell  in  solitude  and  silence,  and  therein  shalt  thou  find 
great  peace  and  a  good  conscience  ;  for  in  a  multitude 
are  much  noise  and  many  distractions  of  the  heart. 


THE  DIVINE  COMEDY  105 

"  Elect  poverty  and  simplicity  and  be  content  with  a  few  things, 
and  thou  wilt  not  be  quick  to  complain. 

"  Flee  the  conversation  of  worldly  men  ;  for  with  both  God 
and  man,  with  things  both  transitory  and  eternal,  thou 
canst  not  be  satisfied." 

The  last  precept  runs  thus  : 

"  Zaccheus,  my  brother,  come  down  from  the  tree-tops  of  know- 
ledge. Come  thou  and  learn  in  the  school  of  God  the  way 
of  humility,  of  meekness,  and  of  patience  ;  so,  by  the 
teaching  of  Christ,  wilt  thou  at  length  be  able  to  attain  to 
the  glory  of  eternal  blessedness." 

In  the  sphere  of  devotional  literature,  the  De 
hnitatione  is,  as  has  been  said,  the  finest  fruit  of 
monasticism .  Compared  with  the  Divina  Commedia 
of  Dante,  it  marks  the  vivid  contrast  between 
religious  life  in  the  world  and  in  the  cloister.  Both 
books  are,  as  it  were,  studies  of  the  human  soul 
in  its  passage  from  darkness  to  light.  In  both, 
Christian  theology  strikes  the  keynote.  But  the 
one  is  as  harmonious  in  its  whole  as  the  other  is 
incongruous  in  its  details.  With  his  vision,  Dante 
has  interwoven  elements  which  the  De  Imitatione 
seeks  to  exclude,  or  feelings  that  it  hopes  to  crush. 
In  the  Divina  Commedia,  passionate  scorn  and  holy 
mysteries  of  faith,  coarse  satire  and  hymns  of  the 
blessed,  contemporary  scandal  and  lofty  idealism, 
the  politics  of  the  day  and  the  most  ardent  faith 
in  the  Divine  government  of  the  world,  the  personal 
bitterness  of  private  wrongs  and  the  keenest  per- 
ception of  the  issues  of  good  and  ill  doing,  are  in- 
extricably mingled. 

Dante's  admiration  of  the  Psalms  is  not  only 
shown  by  the  version  of  the  Seven  Penitential 
Psalms,  which  is  attributed  to  him.  It  is  also  again 
and  again  illustrated  from  his  great  Christian  poem, 
which  ushers  in  the  literature  of  Europe.  In  some 
passages  he  refers  to  David  himself;  in  others  he 
quotes  from  the  Book  of  Psalms.     Thus,  after  he 


io6  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

had  passed  the  threshold  of  the  gate  of  Purgatory 
{Purgatorio,  canto  x.,  1.  i,  and  following),  Dante  and 
his  guide  climb  upwards  by  a  rocky  ascent  to  the 
lowest  circle,  where  those  are  purified  who  have 
sinned  through  pride.  On  one  side  of  the  path 
rises  a  precipitous  cliff  of  white  marble,  curiously 
adorned  with  sculptures  commemorating  humility. 
There  in  the  marble  were  carved  the  car  and  oxen, 
drawing  the  sacred  ark,  and  (11.  64-6) 

"  Preceding  the  blest  vessel,  onward  came 

With  light  dance  leaping,  girt  in  humble  guise, 
Sweet  Israel's  harper  ;    in  that  hap  he  seemed 
Less,  and  yet  more,  than  kingly." 

Ruth,  on  her  throne  in  Paradise  {Paradiso,  canto 
xxxii.,  11.  10-12),  is  described  as 

"  The  gleaner-maid. 
Meek  ancestress  of  him,  who  sang  the  songs 
Of  sore  repentance  in  his  sorrowful  mood." 

In  the  planet  Jupiter,  which  is  the  sixth  heaven, 
the  souls  of  those  who  have  rightly  administered 
justice  on  the  earth  are  disposed  in  the  figure  of  an 
eagle.  Those  that  glitter  in  the  eagle's  eye  are  the 
chief  and  greatest  {Paradiso,  canto  xx.,  11,  37-42), 
and  here  David  is  placed  : 

"  This  that  shines 
Midmost  for  pupil,  was  the  same  who  sang 
The  Holy  Spirit's  song,  and  bare  about 
The  ark  from  town  to  town  ;    now  doth  he  know 
The  merit  of  his  soul-impassion'd  strains 
By  their  well-fitted  guerdon." 

In  other  passages  the  Psalms  are  quoted. 
Cheered  by  St.  James,  Dante  lifts  his  eyes,  hereto- 
fore bent  on  the  ground  with  their  over-heav}'' 
burden,  "  To  the  hills  from  whence  cometh  my  help" 
{Paradiso,  canto  xxv.,  11.  37-39,  and  Ps.  cxxi., 
verse  i).  Hope  had  first  come  to  him,  as  he  tells 
St.  James  {ibid.,  11.  71-5,  and  Ps.  ix.,  verse  10)  : 


The  songs 


"  From  him  who  sang 
of  the  Supreme,  himself  supreme 


DANTE'S  USE  OF  PSALMS  107 

Among  his  tuneful  brethren.     '  Let  all  hope 

In  Thee,'  so  spake  the  anthem,  '  who  have  known 

Thy  name.'  " 

At  an  earlier  stage  in  his  journey,  as  he  Hngered 
by  the  shores  of  the  Island  of  Purgatory  [Purgatorio , 
canto  ii.,  11.  40-8),  Dante  sees  at  early  dawn  a  light 
bark,  without  oars  or  sails,  driven  swiftly  to  land 
by  the  wings  of  the  angel  who  stands  on  the  poop. 
Within  are  a  hundred  spirits  and  more,  who  sing 
with  one  voice  together  Ps.  cxiv.,  "  When  Israel 
came  out  of  Egypt."  So  also  in  the  fifth  circle 
Purgatorio ,  canto  xix.,  11.  70-5,  and  Ps.  cxix.,  verse 
25),  those  who  had  sinned  from  avarice  and 
prodigality,  lay  with  their  faces  downwards,  prone 
upon  the  ground,  weeping  sore  : 

"  '  My  soul  hath  cleaved  to  the  dust,'  I  heard, 
With  sighs  so  deep,  they  well-nigh  choked  the  words." 

Such  illustrations  might  be  multiplied  ;  but  as  an 
example  of  the  use  which  Dante  makes  of  the  Psalms, 
directly  or  symbolically,  those  stanzas  of  the 
Purgatorio  may  be  taken,  in  which  Beatrice  appears. 
Dante  has  passed  through  the  fire,  climbed  the 
mountain,  and,  followed  by  Virgil  and  Statius,  tra- 
verses a  wood,  bright  with  the  fresh  flowers  of  May. 
Through  it  floats  a  light  breeze,  ruffling  the  leaves  as 
it  passes,  scented  with  sweet  odours,  and  mingling 
with  the  songs  of  birds.  He  is  stopped  by  a  stream, 
three  paces  across.  In  a  meadow  on  the  opposite 
side  walks  Matilda,  singing  as  she  gathers  the 
flowers  that  paint  her  way.  Dante  wonders  at  the 
brightness  of  her  smile,  till  she  tells  him  that  she  is 
gladdened  by  the  verse  of  Ps.  xcii.,  beginning 
"  Delectasti  "  (Ps.  xcii.,  verse  4),  "  Thou,  Lord,  hast 
made  me  glad  through  thy  works,"  etc.  ("  Quia 
delectasti  me,  Domine,  in  factura  tua,  et  in  operibus 
manuum  Tuarum  exsultabo.")  It  is  this  delight 
in  God's  work,  and  labour  in  His  service,  that  make 
the  perfect  happiness  of  active  life  on  earth.     All 


io8  THE  MIDDLE  AGES  ^ 

other  bliss  is  but  a  dream  that  closes  with  death. 
This  alone  is  the  waking  vision,  for  it  is  the  pathway 
and  vestibule  of  Heaven.  She  further  explains  to 
him  that  the  spot  is  the  earthly  Paradise,  and  that 
the  stream  by  which  he  stands  is  called  Lethe  and 
Eunoe,  because  its  twofold  properties  are  to  take 
away  the  memory  of  sin,  and  to  restore  the  recollec- 
tion of  every  good  deed.  Then  she  returns,  like  an 
enamoured  dame,  to  her  song  (Purgatorio,  canto 
xxix.,  11.  1-3,  and  Ps,  xxxii.,  verse  i),  "  Blessed  is 
he  whose  unrighteousness  is  forgiven,  and  whose 
sin  is  covered."  As  Matilda,  alone  on  the  one  bank, 
and  the  three  poets  on  the  other,  move  upwards 
against  the  stream,  a  great  brightness  flushes,  and 
then  suddenly  floods,  the  forest  ;  sweet  melody 
floats  through  the  luminous  air  ;  a  procession  of 
figures  comes  into  view  ;  and  a  trmmphal  car, 
drawn  by  a  gryphon,  halts  over  against  the  spot 
where  Dante  stood.  The  poet  has  seen  the  vision 
of  the  perfect  active  life,  which  delights,  not  in  its 
own  labour,  but  in  God's  work.  Now  he  beholds 
the  perfect  contemplative  life,  which  may  be  lived  on 
earth  if  only  it  has  for  its  object,  not  its  own  beauty, 
but  God's  person  and  love  in  Christ.  On  the  car 
appears  Beatrice,  white-veiled, olive-crowned,  strewn 
with  flowers,  and  clad  in  the  mystic  colours  of  Love, 
Faith,  and  Hope  {Purgatorio,  canto  xxx.,  11.  82-5, 
and  Ps.  xxxi.,  verses  1-9).  In  her  eyes  are  reflected 
the  twofold  nature  of  Christ,  and  she  bids  him  mark 
her  well  ;  but  his  gaze  shrinks  from  her  stern 
pity: 

"  And,  suddenly,  the  angels  sang, 
'  In  Thee,  O  gracious  Lord  !    my  hope  hath  been,' 
But  went  no  further  than  '  Thou,  Lord,  hast  set 
My  feet  in  ample  room.'  " 

Chaucer  quotes  but  little  from  the  Psalms.  It 
may  be  taken  as  a  slight  proof  of  his  dramatic  in- 
sight that  he  is  careful  to  make  "  Dame  Abstinence 


THE  VISION  OF  PIERS  PLOWMAN     109 

Streyned  "  {Romaunt  of  the  Rose,  1.  7366),  remember 
"  hir  Sawter  "  as  part  of  her  disguise  of  a  Beguine  ; 
and,  when  he  cites  the  Psalms,  he  places  his  quota- 
tions in  the  mouths  of  persons  like  the  Prioress, 
who  begins  the  prologue  of  her  tale  with  Ps.  viii., 
verses  1,2: 

"  '  O  Lord,  our  Lord,  Thy  name  how  marveillous 
Is  in  this  large  world  y-sprad,' — quod  she," 

or  like  the  Parson,  the  Summoner,  and  the  "  Frere." 
But  in  William  Langland,  fourteenth  -  century 
England  had  her  people's  Dante.  Clad  in  hermit's 
garb,  and  sleeping  heavily  from  weariness  of  wander- 
ing, Langland  saw  on  the  Malvern  Hills  the  Vision 
of  Piers  Plowman.  Far  inferior  to  the  great  Italian 
in  grandeur  of  conception  and  nobility  of  execution, 
the  English  poet  was  Dante's  rival  in  realistic  power. 
He  paints  with  a  wire  brush,  and  a  force  that  is 
almost  fierce  ;  but  his  tender  sympathy  with  human 
suffering  redeems  the  harshness  of  his  rugged  lines, 
and  gives  to  his  racy  vigour  and  homely  language 
something  of  spiritual  intensity. 

That  Langland  should  clothe  much  of  his  Vision 
in  the  language  of  the  Psalms,  is  not  surprising. 
Bred  in  a  monastery,  he  lived  by  singing.  "  The 
tools,"  he  says,  "  wherewith  I  labour  and  earn  my 
bread  are  Paternoster,  and  my  primer  Placebo  and 
Dirige,  and  sometimes  my  Psalter  and  my  Seven 
Psalms."  As  the  whole  world  of  men,  busy  with 
their  varied  occupations,  pass  before  the  dreamer's 
vision,  he  sees  that  Bribery  is  all-powerful,  in  spite 
of  what  David  had  said  of  those  who  take  bribes  : 
"  Lord,  who  shall  dwell  in  thy  tabernacle  ?  He  that 
hath  not  taken  reward  against  the  innocent  "  (Ps. 
XV.,  verses  i  and  6).  He  sees  also  that  Justice  and 
Favour  are  bestowed  on  men  "  in  whose  hands  is 
wickedness,"  provided  that  "  their  right  hand  is 
full  of  gifts  "  (Ps.  xxvi.,  verse  10).  Yet,  evil 
though  the  world  is.  Scripture  bids  men  not  despair  ; 


no  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

no  offence  is  beyond  God's  pardon,  for  "His  mercy  is 
over  all  his  works  "  (Ps.  cxlv.,  verse  9). 

In  sect,  v.,  the  dreamer  sees  again  the  "  field  full 
of  folk,"  where  the  sinners  are  induced  to  confess 
and  repent.  The  Deadly  Sins  make  their  peni- 
tential confession.  Repentance  prays  for  the  peni- 
tents, and  Hope  seizing  a  horn,  blows  upon  it  (Ps. 
xxxii,,  verse  i),  "  Blessed  is  he  whose  unrighteous- 
ness is  forgiven  ;  and  whose  sin  is  covered."  Then 
all  together,  saints  in  glory  and  men  on  earth,  cry 
upward  "  to  Crist  and  to  his  moder  "  with  the 
Psalmist  David,  "  Thou,  Lord,  shalt  save  both  man 
and  beast  ;  How  excellent  is  thy  mercy,  O  God  " 
(Ps.  XXX vi.,  verse  7). 

In  sect.  XV.,  Langland  describes  Charity.  Riches, 
as  the  dreamer  reflects,  hinder  men  in  their  way 
towards  heaven  ;  but  Poverty  is  the  gift  of  God,  and 
sweet  to  the  human  soul.  The  dreamer  has  not 
found  Charity  in  London,  for  there  all  are  covetous. 
Where  then  is  he  to  be  found  ?  and  the  answer  of 
the  Soul  is  given,  that  Charity  seldom  comes  to 
Court.  He  wears  russet  and  fur,  sometimes  ragged 
clothes,  and  once — long  ago — the  frock  of  a  friar. 
Proud  of  a  penny  as  of  a  pound  of  gold,  he  is  full  of 
gladness,  trusts  his  fellows,  finds  in  sickness  a  solace, 
fears  neither  death  nor  dearth.  Who  provides  for 
him  ?  asks  the  dreamer.  He  cares  nothing  for  rent 
or  riches.  He  neither  craves  nor  covets.  In  the 
Lord  he  lays  him  down,  and  takes  his  rest  (Ps.  iv., 
verse  9).  He  has  a  friend,  who  never  fails  :  "  When 
thou  openest  thy  hand,  they  are  filled  with  good  " 
(Ps.  civ.,  verse  28).  He  visits  the  poor  and  the 
prisoner  ;  he  feeds,  clothes,  and  comforts  them, 
telling  them  of  Christ's  sufferings.  He  purgeth  men 
of  pride,  cleansing  them  in  the  Laundry,  with  groans 
and  tears  (Ps.  vi.,  verse  6).  With  the  warm  water 
from  his  eyes,  he  washes  them  whiter  than  snow 
(Ps.  ii.,  verse  7),  singing  with  his  work,  and  some- 
times weeping,  for  he  knows  that  "  a  broken  and 


THE  RESURRECTION  LEGEND        iii 

contrite  heart,  O  God,  shalt  Thou  not  despise  " 
(Ps.  li.,  verse  17). 

In  sect,  xviii.  is  told  in  part  the  Resurrection 
Legend,  based  on  Ps.  xxiv.  (verses  7-10),  "  Lift  up 
your  heads,  O  ye  gates,"  etc.  Christ  had  died  on 
the  Cross,  and  in  Hell  the  devils  saw  a  soul  "  hither- 
ward  sailing — with  glory  and  with  great  light,"  and 
knew  the  coming  of  the  King  of  Glory.  Then  the 
"  Dukes  "  of  that  "  dymme  place  "  are  bidden  to 
undo  the  gates, 

"  That  Crist  may  come  in, 

The  Kynges  sone  of  hevene." 

With  the  breath  of  that  command  Hell  breaks. 
The  hundreds  of  angels  strike  their  harps,  and 
Peace  pipes  : 

"  After  sharpe  showres 
Most  shene  is  the  sonne  ; 
Is  no  weder  warmer 
Than  after  watry  cloudes." 

Truth  makes  her  covenant  with  Peace,  and 
Righteousness  kisses  her  reverently  (Ps.  Ixxxv., 
verse  10).  Finally  Truth  takes  the  lute,  and  to  it 
sings,  "  Behold  how  good  and  joyful  a  thing  it  is, 
brethren,  to  dwell  together  in  unity  "  (Ps.  cxxxiii,, 
verse  i). 

All  over  South-Western  France  has  spread  the 
popular  legend,  that  on  Easter  day,  when  the  words, 
"  Lift  up  your  heads,  O  ye  gates  "  (Ps.  xxiv.)  are 
being  sung  in  church,  the  treasure-houses  marked 
by  dolmens,  cromJechs,  and  menhirs,  or  concealed,  as 
at  Boussac,  in  the  walls  of  castles,  spring  open,  and 
men  may,  for  a  brief  space,  enter  and  enrich  them- 
selves unharmed  by  their  infernal  guardians.  It  is 
the  recurring  moment  of  which  Drummond  of 
Hawthornden  sings  : 

"  Bright  portals  of  the  sky, 

Emboss'd  with  sparkhng  stars  ; 
Doors  of  Eternity, 
With  diamantine  bars 


112  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

Your  arras  rich  uphold, 

Loose  all  your  bolts  and  springs, 
Ope  wide  your  leaves  of  gold, 

That  in  your  roofs  may  come  the  King  of  Kings." 

But  the  prevalence  of  the  legend  in  France,  and 
elsewhere,  is  probably  due  to  the  popularity  of  the 
Golden  Legend  in  devotional  literature.  In  that 
book  is  enshrined  the  religious  heart  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  with  its  fears  and  fancies,  its  longings,  its 
childlike  yet  soaring  faith.  In  it  is  revealed  the 
soul  of  those  cathedrals  which  still  stand  in  our 
midst,  like  beings  of  another  world.  In  it,  too,  are 
unlocked  the  secrets  of  the  intuitive  glories  and 
imaginative  mysteries  of  mediaeval  painting  and 
architecture.  As  Caxton  says  of  it  :  "In  like 
wise  as  gold  is  most  noble  above  all  other  metals,  in 
like  wise  is  this  Legend  holden  most  noble  above  all 
other  works."  The  following  is  the  story  of  Our 
Lord's  visit  to  Hell,  condensed  from  the  version  of 
the  Golden  Legend  : — 

The  news  of  the  Resurrection  struck  Jerusalem 
with  consternation.  While  the  priests  and  princes 
of  the  people  were  holding  counsel,  there  were 
brought  into  the  assembly  two  sons  of  the  aged 
Simeon,  Leucius  and  Carinus,  who  had  risen  with 
Jesus  and  returned  from  death  to  life.  Each  asked 
that  tablets  should  be  given  them,  and  each  wrote 
thereon  his  tale.  We  were,  they  wrote,  in  the  dim 
place  of  Shadow  \\dth  our  fathers  the  Patriarchs, 
when  suddenly  a  great  light  of  gold  and  crimson,  as 
it  had  been  the  sun  in  his  glory,  shone  round  about 
us.  Then,  straightway,  Adam,  the  father  of  the 
human  race,  rejoiced  and  said,  "  This  light  is  that 
of  the  Author  of  all  light,  who  has  promised  to  send 
us  His  eternal  day."  And  Isaiah  cried  aloud,  "  This 
light  is  that  of  God,  of  whom  I  foretold  that  the 
people  which  walked  in  darkness  should  see  a  great 
light."  Then  came  to  us  the  aged  Simeon,  and  with 
him  John  the  Baptist,  and  they  both  bore  witness 


THE  GOLDEN  LEGEND  113 

to  the  Saviour — the  one,  that  he  had  carried  Him 
in  his  arms  ;  the  other,  that  he  had  baptized  Him, 
and  that  His  coming  was  nigh.  And  all  the  Patri- 
archs were  filled  with  joy  unspeakable. 

Then  Satan,  the  prince  of  Death,  said  unto  Hell, 
"  Make  ready  to  receive  Jesus,  who  boasted  Himself 
to  be  the  Son  of  God,  but  who  is  only  a  man  in  fear 
of  death,  for  He  hath  said,  '  My  soul  is  exceeding 
sorrowful,  even  unto  death.'  Behold  how  I  have 
tempted  Him  !  I  have  stirred  up  the  people  against 
Him  !  I  have  sharpened  the  lance  ;  I  have  mingled 
the  gall  and  vinegar  ;  I  have  made  ready  the  tree 
of  the  cross.  The  time  is  at  hand,  when  I  shall 
bring  Him  hither  a  captive." 

Then  Hell  asked,  "  Is  it  this  same  Jesus  who  raised 
up  Lazarus  ?  "  And  Satan  made  answer,  "It  is 
He."  Then  Hell  cried,  "  I  adjure  thee,  by  thy 
power  and  by  mine,  that  thou  bring  Him  not  hither  ; 
for  when  I  heard  the  command  of  His  word,  I 
trembled,  and  I  could  not  hold  Lazarus,  but  he, 
wresting  himself  from  me,  took  flight  like  an  angel 
and  escaped  out  of  my  hands." 

Now,  while  Hell  was  thus  speaking,  there  came  a 
voice,  like  the  crash  of  thunder,  which  said,  "  Open 
your  gates,  ye  Princes,  lift  up  your  everlasting  doors, 
and  the  King  of  Glory  shall  come  in."  At  the  sound 
of  this  mighty  voice  the  devils  hastened  to  close  the 
brazen  gates  with  bars  of  iron.  But  when  he  saw 
what  they  did,  the  prophet  David  said,  "  Have  I 
not  prophesied  that  He  would  break  the  gates  of 
brass,  and  smite  in  sunder  the  bars  of  iron  ?  " 
Again  the  voice  sounded,  "  Open  ye  your  gates,  and 
the  King  of  Glory  shall  come  in."  Then  Hell, 
hearing  that  the  voice  had  thus  twice  spoken, 
asked,  "  Who  then  is  this  King  of  Glory  ?  "  And 
the  prophet  David  made  answer,  "It  is  the  Lord 
Strong  and  Mighty,  even  the  Lord  mighty  in  battle  ; 
He  is  the  King  of  Glory." 

Even  as  David  spake,  the  King  of  Glory  appeared, 


114  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

Hissplendour  shining  through  all  the  halls  of  shadows, 
and  He  stretched  forth  His  right  hand  and  took  the 
right  hand  of  Adam,  saying,  "  Peace  be  with  thee, 
and  with  all  thy  sons  that  have  been  just."  And  so 
the  Lord  passed  forth  from  the  gates  of  Hell,  and 
in  His  train  followed  all  the  just. 

Leucius  and  Carinus  ceased  to  write,  and  becoming 
white  as  snow,  disappeared. 


CHAPTER    V 
The  Reformation  Era 

The  influence  of  the  Psalms  among  pioneers  of  the  Reformation 
— Wyclif,  John  Hus,  Jerome  of  Prague  ;  among  mediaeval 
reformers — Savonarola  ;  among  Protestant  leaders — -Luther 
and  Melanchthon  ;  among  champions  of  the  Papacy — the 
Emperor  Charles  v.  ;  among  artists — Benvenuto  Cellini  ; 
among  discoverers  or  conquerors  of  New  Worlds — Christopher 
Columbus  and  Pizarro  ;  among  men  of  the  New  Learning — 
Erasmus,  Pico  della  Mirandola,  Sir  Thomas  More  ;  John 
Fisher ;  John  Houghton  ;  among  leaders  of  the  Catholic 
Reaction — Xavier,  and  St.  Teresa  ;  among  Protestant  and 
Catholic  Martyrs — Hooper,  Ridley,  and  Southwell. 

ON  St.  Sylvester's  Day,  1384,  John  Wyclif  lay 
dying  at  Lutterworth.  The  friars,  so  runs 
the  story,  crowded  round  him,  urging  him  to  confess 
the  wrongs  that  he  had  done  to  their  Order.  But 
the  indomitable  old  man  caused  his  servant  to 
raise  him  from  the  pillow,  and,  gathering  all  his 
remaining  strength,  exclaimed  with  a  loud  voice, 
"  I  shall  not  die,  but  live  ;  and  declare — the  evil 
deeds  of  the  Friars  "  (Ps.  cxviii.,  verse  17), 

Before  Wyclif 's  day,  devout  men  had  assailed  the 
corruption  of  the  Church,  or  disputed  her  doctrines 
of  the  Sacraments.  Some  had  protested  against 
the  claims  of  the  Papacy,  or  upheld  the  rights 
of  national  churches.  Others  had  demanded  the 
preaching  of  the  true  Gospel.  Others  had  deplored 
the  worldhness  of  the  clergy,  denounced  the  wealth 
of  the  Monastic  Orders,  or  preached  the  blessings 
of  poverty.  But  all  had  remained  loyal  to  the 
Pope  ;   none  had  looked  beyond  existing  agencies 

9 


ii6  THE  REFORMATION  ERA 

for  the  reform  of  the  Church  and  of  society.  Wychf 's 
attitude  marks  an  advance  so  distinct  as  to  proclaim 
a  new  epoch.  He  not  only  attacked  practical  abuses, 
but  aimed  at  erecting  an  ecclesiastical  fabric  which 
should  differ  from  the  old  in  doctrine  as  well  as  in 
organisation.  In  the  last  years  of  his  life  he  urged 
complete  separation  from  the  Papac}^  as  Antichrist, 
established  his  "  Poor  Priests,"  aspired  to  reform 
England  by  the  translation  of  the  Bible  into  the 
vulgar  tongue,  and,  in  religion,  politics,  and  society, 
insisted  on  the  freedom  of  the  human  conscience 
from  every  restraint  except  Christ's  written  law. 
His  importance  as  the  centre  of  all  pre-Reformation 
history  was  instinctively  recognised.  When  the 
Bishop  of  Lincoln  ordered  his  body  to  be  exhumed 
and  burned,  and  its  ashes  thrown  into  the  river 
Swift — or  when  Walsingham,  the  Chronicler,  calls 
him  "  that  weapon  of  the  devil,  that  enemy  of  the 
Church,  that  sower  of  confusion  among  unlearned 
people,  that  idol  of  heresy,  that  mirror  of  hypocrisy, 
that  father  of  schism,  that  son  of  hatred,  that  father 
of  lies  " — the  one  b}^  his  action,  the  other  by  his 
language,  expresses  his  sense  of  the  fact  that  Wj^clif 
was  not  a  reformer  of  the  mediaeval  monastic  type, 
but  had  introduced  a  new  era. 

Wyclif's  attitude  was,  in  part,  produced  by 
changed  circumstances.  Traditions  of  universal 
empire  were  obscured  by  the  rise  of  separate  nations, 
one  in  race,  language,  and  religion  ;  the  temporal 
claims  of  the  Pope  had  increased  as  his  spiritual  hold 
on  the  world  relaxed,  and  both  became  intolerable, 
when  claimants  of  the  papal  throne  excommunicated 
their  opponents  or  doomed  their  rivals  to  eternal 
damnation.  In  part,  it  expressed  profound  dis- 
content with  the  corruptions  of  religious  life,  in- 
tensified by  the  horrors  of  the  plague.  Even  the 
most  vicious  were  terrified  into  pa3dng  that  vicarious 
homage  to  virtue  which  demands  from  the  clergy 
an  elevated  moral  standard.     In  part,  it  resulted 


HUS  AND  JEROME  OF  PRAGUE   117 

from  political  or  social  conditions.  The  English 
nation  was  at  war  with  France  ;  the  Pope  was  the 
puppet  of  the  French  king,  and  papal  tributes  fed 
the  French  Treasury  with  English  money.  The 
nobles  desired  to  oust  the  clergy  from  public  affairs, 
the  commons  to  lighten  their  own  burdens  by  taxing 
ecclesiastical  property,  the  people  to  relieve  their 
poverty  by  appropriating  the  wealth  of  the  Church. 
But  the  peculiar  position  which  Wyclif  adopted  was 
even  more  the  effect  of  his  own  temperament.  To 
his  austere  piety,  logical  intellect,  unimaginative 
nature,  the  faith  of  the  Middle  Ages  made  but  weak 
appeal.  Blind  to  its  beauties,  he  saw  with  ex- 
aggerated clearness  only  its  deformities.  He  chafed 
against  the  fetters  it  imposed  on  his  mental  inde- 
pendence, and  failed  to  appreciate  its  spiritual  in- 
sight, mystical  ardour,  religious  rapture,  intense 
realisation  of  the  mysteries  of  the  unseen.  When 
once  a  man  of  this  temperament  was  startled  into 
opposition  by  intellectual  difficulties  or  moral 
shortcomings,  he  could  not  stop  short  at  reform, 
but  was  irresistibly  impelled  towards  revolution. 
He  was  the  precursor,  not  of  the  Anglican  reformer, 
but  of  the  Puritan  iconoclast. 

Without  Wyclif  there  would  have  been  no  Hus 
and  no  Jerome  of  Prague.  Both  men  were  accused 
of  sympathy  with  the  English  Reformer.  At  Prague 
a  portion  of  Wyclif 's  tomb  was  worshipped  as  a  relic  : 
numerous  manuscripts  of  his  writings  exist  in  foreign 
libraries,  especially  at  Vienna  ;  and  Hus's  work  on 
the  Church  {De  Ecclesid)  is  derived,  sometimes  ver- 
bally, from  the  English  Reformer.  Like  Wyclif, 
both  Hus  and  Jerome  died  repeating  the  words  of 
a  psalm. 

On  July  6,  141 5,  the  Council  of  Constance  held 
its  fifteenth  general  session  in  the  cathedral.  Sigis- 
mund.  King  of  the  Romans,  presided  ;  before  his 
throne,  nobles  and  princes  of  the  empire  bore  the 
insignia  of  the  imperial  dignity  ;   the  cardinals  and 


ii8  THE  REFORMATION  ERA 

prelates  were  assembled  in  their  nations.  After 
Mass  had  been  said,  John  Hus,  a  pale,  thin  man,  in 
mean  attire,  was  brought  into  the  presence  of  his 
judges,  and  placed  on  a  small  raised  platform.  In 
vain  he  protested  that  he  had  come  to  Constance 
under  a  safe  conduct  from  Sigismund  himself.  He 
was  condemned  as  a  heretic,  and  handed  over  to  the 
secular  arm  for  execution.  The  sentence  was  carried 
out  without  delay.  On  the  road  from  Constance 
to  Gottlieben  the  stake  was  prepared.  When  Hus 
reached  the  spot,  wearing  a  paper  cap  of  blasphemy, 
adorned  with  "  three  devils  of  wonderfully  ugly 
shape,"  and  inscribed  with  the  word  "Heresiarcha," 
he  fell  on  his  knees  and  prayed,  chanting  Psalm  xxxi. 
He  died,  choked  by  the  flames,  but  repeating  with 
"  a  merry  and  cheerful  countenance  "  the  words, 
"  Into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit  "  (Ps.  xxxi., 
verse  6). 

On  the  same  spot,  on  May  30,  1416,  died  Jerome 
of  Prague .  Tall ,  powerfully  built ,  graceful  of  speech , 
one  of  the  most  brilliant  laymen  of  the  day,  he  had 
come  to  the  Council  to  plead  the  cause  of  Hus. 
Panic-stricken  at  his  friend's  fate,  he  fled,  only  to 
be  captured  and  brought  back  to  Constance.  His 
courage  revived  when  escape  was  hopeless.  An 
imprisonment  of  six  months  did  not  induce  him  to 
acknowledge  the  justice  of  the  sentence  passed  upon 
Hus.  Like  his  friend,  he  perished  at  the  stake, 
dwelling  with  his  latest  breath  on  the  same  words, 
"  Into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit." 

The  Council  of  Constance  healed  the  papal 
schism.  But  it  accomplished  little  more.  With 
its  dissolution,  and  that  of  the  Council  of  Basle, 
faded  the  hope  of  any  complete  or  universal  reform 
of  the  Church  from  within.  It  was  a  time,  not  of 
transition  onty,  but  also  of  sifting.  Men  like  Luther, 
Erasmus,  or  Fisher,  who  were  of  one  mind  in  con- 
demning abuses,  passed  into  opposite  camps,  im- 
pelled by  the  differences  in  their  own  temperaments. 


THE  CATHOLIC  REACTION  119 

Vast  efforts  were  indeed  made  for  internal  reform  ; 
but  they  were  too  narrow,  too  local,  or  too  late. 
The  pent-up  stream  of  intellectual  life  and  classic 
culture  had  burst  its  barriers,  shattering  the  old 
channels  of  thinking,  believing,  and  acting,  which 
centuries  of  habit  had  grooved.  Fed  from  in- 
numerable sources,  the  Protestant  Reformation  had 
swelled  into  a  headlong  torrent.  In  the  sea  of 
human  faith  and  thought  both  currents  met  the 
flowing  tide  of  the  Catholic  reaction.  It  was  a  time 
of  fierce  shock  and  collision.  But  among  the  "  green 
pastures  "  of  the  Psalms,  and  beside  their  "  waters  of 
comfort,"  men,  who,  in  all  else,  were  at  bitter  strife, 
refresh  their  weariness,  renew  their  aspirations, 
recover  their  strength  and  courage.  From  the 
same  pages,  side  by  side,  read  mediaeval  reformers 
like  Savonarola,  heroes  of  the  Protestant  Reform- 
ation like  Luther  and  Melanchthon,  imperial  cham- 
pions of  the  Papacy  hke  Charles  v.,  discoverers  of 
new  worlds  like  Christopher  Columbus,  artists  like 
Benvenuto  Celhni,  conquerors  of  empires  like 
Pizarro,  lights  of  the  new  learning  like  Sir  Thomas 
More,  leaders  of  the  Roman  Catholic  reaction  like 
St.  Teresa  or  St.  Francis  Xavier. 

Savonarola  (1452-98),  the  great  Dominican 
preacher,  who  for  five  years  held  within  the  hollow 
of  his  hand  the  destinies  of  Florence,  is  one  of  the 
most  fascinating  figures  in  history.  His  worn  face, 
as  it  is  presented  to  us  in  the  best  known  of  his  por- 
traits, is  harsh  and  even  ugly,  yet  full  of  concentrated 
force,  both  intellectual  and  moral.  His  blue-grey 
eyes  burn  like  live  coals  under  thick  black  eyebrows, 
and  light  up  the  yellow,  wax-like  complexion  ;  his 
nose  is  long,  and  highly  arched  ;  his  large  mouth  is 
quick  to  compress  into  resolve  or  to  relax  into  a 
smile  ;  the  projecting  lower  lip  gives  an  air  of  pug- 
nacity to  the  whole  face  ;  his  cheeks  are  hollowed 
by  anxieties  and  abstinence  ;  his  low  yet  massive 
forehead    is    furrowed    by    the    deep    wrinkles    of 


lio  THE  REFORMATION  ERA 

thought.  His  delicate  transparent  hands,  with 
their  long  tapering  fingers,  tell  the  story  of  his 
enthusiastic,  imaginative  temperament. 

Long  had  the  hard-featured  stripling  pondered 
over  the  sin  and  misery  of  the  world,  praying,  as  he 
tells  his  father,  in  the  words  of  the  Psalm  (cxliii., 
verse  8),  "  Shew  thou  me  the  way  that  I  should 
w^alk  in,  for  I  lift  up  my  soul  unto  thee."  To  escape 
the  stifling  atmosphere  of  wickedness  with  which  he 
was  surrounded,  he  fled  to  the  cloister.  Seven  years 
later  (1482)  he  was  transferred  from  the  Dominican 
convent  of  Bologna  to  that  of  San  Marco  at  Florence, 
and  began  his  career  as  preacher,  reformer,  and 
prophet.  His  indignation  burned  into  flame  as  he 
watched  the  Church  plundered  by  false  friends,  and 
saw  spiritual  death  stealing  over  her  pulseless  form, 
like  some  quiet  flowing  tide.  But  his  ideals  were  not 
those  of  a  Wyclif  or  a  Luther.  He  looked  to  a 
General  Council  to  purify  the  vices  of  the  Church  : 
a  rebel  against  an  individual  Pope,  he  was  lo3^al  to 
the  Papacy  :  a  stern  reprover  of  practice,  he  ad- 
vocated no  change  in  doctrine.  Throughout  the 
struggle  that  followed,  the  contrast  between  the 
personal  characters  of  the  opponents  heightens  the 
tragic  interest.  On  one  side  stands  Roderigo  Borgia, 
Pope  Alexander  vi.,  whose  name  has  passed  into  a 
byword  as  a  monster  of  iniquity  ;  on  the  other, 
Savonarola,  whose  pure  enthusiasm,  unsullied 
morality,  and  religious  zeal  can  neither  be  denied 
nor  disputed. 

On  April  7,  1498,  occurred  a  crisis  in  Savonarola's 
fate.  It  was  the  Friday  before  Palm  Sunda3^  A 
Franciscan  friar  had  challenged  him  to  prove  the 
truth  of  his  preaching  by  the  ordeal  of  fire.  The 
challenge  was  accepted  by  one  of  his  devoted 
adherents,  Fra  Domenico.  Through  the  crowded 
streets  of  Florence  passed  the  long  procession  of  the 
Dominicans  from  San  Marco  to  the  great  square  in 
front  of  the  Palazzo  Vecchio,  where  the  ordeal  was 


SAVONAROLA  121 

prepared.  Their  enthusiastic  supporters  heard  the 
very  buildings  take  up  their  chant,  when  the  friars 
thundered  forth  the  words  of  Psalm  Ixviii.,  "  Let 
God  arise,  and  let  his  enemies  be  scattered."  All 
day  the  populace  waited  ;  but  the  challenger  did 
not  appear.  The  blind  adoration  of  the  fickle 
Florentines  turned  to  fury.  Savonarola's  power 
was  at  an  end.  He  was  at  the  mercy  of  his  enemies. 
On  Palm  Sunday,  the  9th  of  the  month,  he  was 
dragged  from  San  Marco  and  thrown  into  prison. 
There  he  suffered  repeated  tortures,  inflicted  in  the 
hope  of  wringing  from  him  the  confession  that  his 
revelations  of  the  future  were  impostures.  To  a 
man  of  his  high-strung  sensitive  temperament  the 
physical  agony  was  intense,  and  to  it  were  added 
the  mental  pain  of  desertion,  the  pang  of  lost  con- 
fidence, the  bodily  weakness  of  frequent  fasts .  With 
subtle  refinement  of  cruelty,  his  torturers,  who  had 
broken  his  left  arm  and  crunched  the  shoulder-bone 
out  of  its  socket,  had  left  his  right  arm  whole  in 
order  that  he  might  sign  his  so-called  confessions. 
He  used  it  to  write  his  meditations  on  the  51st  and 
the  3 1  St  Psalms.  The  last  was  unfinished .  Whether 
ink  and  paper  were  taken  from  the  prisoner,  or 
whether  the  arrival  of  the  Papal  Commissioners  on 
May  19,  and  his  execution  on  the  22nd,  cut  short 
his  task,  is  uncertain.  Only  three  verses  were 
completed  : 

"  Sorrow,"  he  begins,  "  hath  pitched  her  camp 
against  me.  She  hath  hemmed  me  in  on  every  side. 
Her  men  of  war  are  strong  and  many.  She  hath 
filled  my  heart  with  the  shout  of  battle  and  the  din 
of  arms.  Day  and  night  she  ceaseth  not  to  strive 
with  me.  My  friends  have  become  my  foes,  and 
fight  under  her  standard. 

"  Unhappy  being  that  I  am  !  who  will  free  me 
from  the  hands  of  the  ungodly  ?  Who  will  shield 
me  ?  Who  will  come  to  my  succour  ?  Whither 
shall  I  flee  ?     How  can  I  escape  ?     I  know  what  I 


122  THE  REFORMATION  ERA 

will  do.  I  will  turn  to  heaventy  things,  and  they 
shall  do  battle  with  the  things  of  the  earth.  Hope 
shall  lead  the  forces  of  Heaven  ;  Hope  shall  march 
against  Sorrow,  and  overcome  her.  Hear  what 
the  prophet  hath  said  :  '  For  thou.  Lord,  art  my 
hope  ;  thou  hast  set  thine  house  of  defence  very 
high  '  (Ps.  xci.,  verse  9).  I  will  call  unto  the  Lord, 
and  He  will  hasten  to  come  to  me,  and  will  not  suffer 
mc  to  be  put  to  confusion.  Lo  !  He  hath  come 
already.  '  Cry  aloud,'  He  saith,  '  Cry  aloud 
always.'  And  what,  Lord,  shall  I  cry?  '  Cry  in 
full  assurance,  and  with  all  thy  heart.'  In  thee,  O 
Lord,  have  I  put  my  trust  ;  let  me  never  be  put  to 
confusion  ;   deliver  me  in  thy  righteousness  ! 

"  Bowed  at  the  feet  of  the  Lord,  my  eyes  bathed 
with  tears,  I  cried,  '  The  Lord  is  my  light  and  my 
salvation  ;  whom  then  shall  I  fear  ;  the  Lord  is  the 
strength  of  my  life  ;  of  whom  then  shall  I  be  afraid  ? 
Though  a  host  of  men  were  set  against  me,  yet  shall 
not  my  heart  be  afraid  ;  and  though  there  rose  up 
war  against  me,  yet  will  I  put  my  trust  in  Him.'  " 

Here  the  Commentary,  of  which  only  the  be- 
ginning and  the  end  are  given,  closes  abruptly. 
But  in  the  peace  which  the  Psalms  brought  him, 
Savonarola  slept  soundly  on  the  night  before  his 
execution,  and,  as  the  morning  light  struggled 
through  the  bars  of  the  prison,  a  Penitent  of  the 
Temple,  watching  at  his  side,  saw  a  smile  play  over 
his  face  while  he  slept,  as  soft  and  gentle  as  the 
smile  of  a  little  child.  With  the  strength  which  the 
Psalm  gave  him  he  met  his  death,  in  silence  and  with 
unflinching  courage,  on  the  open  space  before  the 
Palazzo  Vecchio.  It  is  from  the  Psalms  (Ps.  li., 
verse  13),  "  Then  shall  I  teach  thy  ways  unto  the 
wicked  ;  and  sinners  shall  be  converted  unto  thee," 
that  the  motto  is  taken  for  Michel  Angelo's  picture 
of  Savonarola. 

Savonarola  was  in  no  sense  of  the  w^ord  a  Protest- 
ant.    But  his  commentaries  on  Pss.  xxxi.  and  H. 


MARTIN  LUTHER  123 

were  published  by  Luther,  with  a  preface,  in  1523. 
With  Wydif  and  his  immediate  followers  neither 
Luther  nor  Melancthon  was  in  full  sympathy.  The 
first  censured  the  English  Reformer  for  his  sacra- 
mental views,  the  second  thought  him  mad  on  the 
subject  of  Church  property.  Yet  the  same  text 
from  the  Psalms,  which  Wyclif  adapted  on  his  death- 
bed, was  inscribed  on  the  walls  of  Luther's  study,  "I 
shall  not  die,  but  live,  and  declare  the  works  of  the 
Lord  "  (Ps.  cxviii.,  verse  17),  and  both  the  German 
Reformers  died  (Luther,  the  man  of  war  and  for 
the  people,  on  February  18,  i  546  ;  Melanchthon,  the 
man  of  peace  and  considerate  scholar,  on  April  19, 
1560)  committing  their  souls  to  God  in  the  same 
words  of  the  Psalm  which  Hus  and  Jerome  of 
Prague  had  repeated  with  their  latest  breath, 
"  Into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit  "  (Ps.  xxxi., 
verse  6). 

Luther's  love  of  the  Psalms  might  be  fully 
illustrated  by  the  lectures  on  them  with  which  he 
began  his  public  career,  as  a  teacher,  at  Wittenberg 
( 1 5 1 2),  by  his  Commentaries  on  the  Seven  Penitential 
Psalms  (15 1 7),  by  his  hymns,  by  his  life  and  con- 
versation. He  clung  to  his  "  old  and  ragged  " 
Psalter  as  a  tried  and  trusty  friend.  With  an 
exposition  of  Ps.  cxviii.  he  busied  himself  in  his 
solitude  at  Coburg.  "  This,"  he  says,  in  the 
dedication  of  his  translation,  "  is  my  psalm,  my 
chosen  psalm.  I  love  them  all  ;  I  love  all  Holy 
Scripture,  which  is  my  consolation  and  my  life. 
But  this  psalm  is  nearest  my  heart,  and  I  have  a 
familiar  right  to  call  it  mine.  It  has  saved  me  from 
many  a  pressing  danger,  from  which  nor  emperor, 
nor  kings,  nor  sages,  nor  saints  could  have  saved  me. 
It  is  my  friend  ;  dearer  to  me  than  all  the  honours 
and  power  of  the  earth." 

Mention  has  been  already  made  of  Luther's  love 
for  Psalm  iv.,  and  his  wish  to  hear  sung  in  his  last 
moments  the  soothing  words,  "  I  will  lay  me  down 


124  THE  REFORMATION  ERA 

in  peace,  and  take  my  rest  "  (Ps.  iv.,  verse  9). 
Another  of  his  favourites  was  Psalm  ex.  "  The 
iioth,"  he  says,  "  is  very  fine.  It  describes  the 
kingdom  and  priesthood  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  de- 
clares Him  to  be  the  King  of  all  things  and  the 
intercessor  for  all  men  ;  to  Whom  all  things  have 
been  remitted  by  His  Father,  and  Who  has  com- 
passion on  us  all.  *Tis  a  noble  psalm  ;  if  I  were  well, 
I  would  endeavour  to  make  a  commentary  upon  it." 
Another  favourite  was  Psalm  ii.,  and  his  remarks 
upon  it  bring  out  salient  features  in  the  character 
of  a  man  whose  very  words  were  "  half-battles  "  : 
"  The  2nd  Psalm  is  one  of  the  best  psalms.  I  love 
that  psalm  with  all  my  heart.  It  strikes  and 
flashes  valiantly  among  kings,  princes,  counsellors, 
judges,  etc.  If  what  this  psalm  says  be  true,  then 
are  the  allegations  and  aims  of  the  papists  stark 
lies  and  folly.  If  I  were  our  Lord  God,  and  had 
committed  the  government  to  my  son,  as  He  to  His 
Son,  and  these  vile  people  were  as  disobedient  as 
now  they  be,  I  would  knock  the  world  in  pieces." 

But  if  his  comment  on  Psalm  ii.  illustrates  the 
violence  of  Luther's  character,  his  use  of  Psalm  xlvi. 
exemplifies  his  magnificent  courage  and  suggests  the 
source  from  which  it  sprang.  There  w^ere  moments 
when  even  he  felt  something  akin  to  despair, 
and  he  asked  with  the  Psalmist,  "  Why  art  thou 
cast  down,  O  my  soul  ?  "  In  such  hours  he  would 
say  to  Melanchthon,  "  Come,  Philip,  let  us  sing  the 
46th  Psalm,"  and  the  two  friends  sang  it  in  Luther's 
version,  "  Ein'  feste  Burg  ist  unser  Gott."  The 
version  is  characteristic  of  the  man.  It  has  his 
heartiness,  his  sincere  piety,  his  joyful  confidence, 
his  simplicity  and  strength,  his  impetuosity  and 
ruggedness.  Harmony,  delicacy,  spiritual  tender- 
ness, are  not  there.  But  the  w^ords  of  his  hymn 
breathe  the  same  undaunted  spirit  which  flamed  out 
in  answer  to  the  warning  of  his  friends,  "  Were  there 


LUTHER'S  VERSION  OF  A  PSALM     125 

as  many  devils  in  Worms  as  there  are  roof-tiles,  I 
would  on."  They  also  reveal  the  secret  of  the  con- 
fidence which  inspired  his  memorable  words  before 
the  Council  :  "I  cannot  and  will  not  retract  any- 
thing. It  is  neither  wise  nor  right  to  do  aught 
against  conscience.  Here  stand  I  ;  I  cannot  other- 
wise.    God  help  me.     Amen." 

From  Carlyle's  rugged  translation  of  "  Ein'  feste 
Burg  ist  unser  Gott,"  the  first  and  the  last  of  the 
four  stanzas  of  Luther's  version  of  Psalm  xlvi.  are 
quoted  : 

"  A  safe  stronghold  our  God  is  still, 

A  trusty  shield  and  weapon  ; 
He'll  help  us  clear  from  all  the  ill 

That  hath  us  now  o'ertaken. 
The  ancient  Prince  of  Hell 
Hath  risen  with  purpose  fell  ; 
Strong  mail  of  Craft  and  Power 
He  weareth  in  this  hour, 
On  earth  is  not  his  fellow. 

God's  Word,  for  all  their  craft  and  force 

One  moment  will  not  linger. 
But,  spite  of  Hell,  shall  have  its  course, 

'Tis  written  by  his  finger. 
And  though  they  take  our  life. 
Goods,  honour,  children,  wife. 
Yet  is  their  profit  small  ; 
These  things  shall  vanish  all, 
The  City  of  God  remaineth." 

The  Diet  of  Worms  (January,  1521),  by  which 
Luther  was  condemned  and  placed  under  the  ban 
of  the  empire,  was  opened  by  Charles  v.,  the  cham- 
pion of  the  Pope  against  the  Protestants.  Yet,  in 
love  of  the  Psalms,  emperor  and  reformer  were  not 
divided.  Charles  presented  Marot  with  200  gold 
doubloons  for  his  metrical  version  of  thirty  psalms, 
and  asked  him  to  translate  his  own  special  favourite, 
Psalm  cxviii.^  His  delight  in  the  Psalter  increased 
in  later  life,  especially  in  the  period  of  ill-health 

1  Bovet  {Hisioire  du  Psautier,  p.  6,  note  3)  thinks  the  Psalm  was 
cxviii.     It  might,  however,  have  been  Psalm  cvii. 


126  THE  REFORMATION  ERA 

which  ended  his  long  rule  (1550-6),  when  he  sang 
them  with  his  friend,  William  von  Male.  During 
those  years  his  cherished  plan  of  abdication  took 
definite  shape. 

In  November,  1556,  Charles  crossed  the  pass  of 
Puerto-nuevo  and  descended  into  the  valley  of  the 
Vera  in  Estramadura,  where  he  intended  to  pass  the 
closing  years  of  his  life.  The  beetling  crags  at  the 
topmost  crest  of  the  vSierra  closed,  as  it  were,  the 
gates  of  the  world  behind  him  ;  "  'Tis  the  last  pass," 
he  said,  "  that  I  shall  ever  go  through."  The 
Jeromite  Convent  of  Yuste  was  the  scene  of  the 
emperor's  retirement.  He  entered  it  on  Feb- 
ruary 3,  1557,  bringing  with  him  two  illuminated 
Psalters,  and  the  commentary  of  Tomas  de  Puer- 
tocarrero  on  the  Psalm,  In  te,  Domine,  speravi  ("  In 
thee,  O  Lord,  have  I  put  my  trust,"  Ps.  xxxi.  i). 
From  the  windows  of  his  cabinet  he  looked  over  a 
cluster  of  rounded  knolls,  clad  in  walnut  and  chest- 
nut, varied  with  the  massive  foliage  of  the  fig,  and 
the  feathery  sprays  of  the  almond.  Here  he  lived 
transacting  business  of  the  State,  punctilious  in  his 
devotions,  delighting  in  the  music  of  the  choir, 
giving  to  his  garden  or  his  pets  much  of  the  leisure 
which  he  enjoyed.  In  September,  1 558,  he  lay  on  his 
death-bed.  Portents  heralded  his  approaching  end. 
The  bell  of  Vililla  in  Arragon,  which,  ringing  of 
itself,  had  foretold  the  death  of  Ferdinand  the 
Catholic,  and  the  sack  of  Rome  by  the  army  of 
Bourbon,  sent  out  its  mysterious  warnings  over  the 
plains  of  the  Ebro.  A  comet  blazed  in  the  sky 
during  his  illness,  and  disappeared  on  the  day  of  his 
death.  A  lily  bud,  which  had  remained  a  bud  all 
the  summer,  burst  into  bloom  on  September  20, 
as  a  token,  it  was  believed,  of  the  whiteness  of  the 
departing  spirit,  and  as  a  pledge  of  its  reception  into 
the  mansions  of  bliss.  On  Monday,  the  19th,  he 
had  received  the  longer  or  ecclesiastical  form  of 
extreme  unction,  which  consisted  in  the  recitation 


BENVENUTO  CELLINI  127 

of  the  seven  Penitential  Psalms,  and  litany,  and 
several  portions  of  Scripture.  Throughout  the  20th 
of  September,  passages  were  read  aloud  to  him  by 
his  confessor,  from  the  Bible,  but  especially  from  the 
Psalms,  his  favourite  being  Psalm  xc,  "  Lord,  thou 
hast  been  our  refuge."  On  the  same  evening  he 
received  the  Sacrament,  at  his  urgent  request.  "  It 
may  not,"  he  said,  "  be  necessary  ;  but  it  is  good 
company  on  so  long  a  journey."  In  spite  of  extreme 
weakness,  he  followed  all  the  responses,  and  re- 
peated with  the  utmost  fervour  the  whole  verse, 
"  Into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit  :  for  thou 
hast  redeemed  me,  O  Lord,  thou  God  of  truth  " 
(Ps.  xxxi.,  verse  6).  On  St.  Matthew's  day 
(September  21),  at  two  o'clock  the  next  morning, 
the  Emperor  Charles  v.  was  dead. 

To  Luther  the  artistic  side  of  the  new  movement 
made  little  appeal.  Yet  artist  and  reformer  read 
out  of  the  same  Psalter.  Like  Luther,  Benvenuto 
Cellini  (1500-71),  the  famous  Florentine  sculptor, 
engraver,  and  metal-worker,  turned  to  the  Psalms 
for  support  in  tribulation.  His  racy  autobiography 
is  one  of  the  most  interesting  books  ever  written. 
It  is  a  vivid  picture  of  Italian  Society  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  a  gallery  of  portraits  shrewdly  and 
vigorously  drawn.  It  is  also  a  revelation  of  the 
"  Genius  of  the  Renaissance  " — incarnated  in  the 
personality  of  the  writer.  It  sets  before  us  his  un- 
flagging zest  for  life,  his  passionate  love  of  art,  his 
fiery  energy,  his  magnificent  self-reliance.  With 
unblushing  candour,  it  shows  the  evil  as  well  as 
the  strength  of  his  nature.  There  is  the  same 
intensity  in  both.  Violent,  unscrupulous,  vindic- 
tive, he  handled  the  sword  and  dagger  as  skilfully 
as  his  goldsmith's  tools,  and  never  hesitated  to  use 
them  against  his  enemies.  Yet,  a  prisoner  in  the 
Castle  of  St.  Angelo,  tortured  by  a  broken  leg,  and 
daily  expecting  execution,  he  turned  to  the  Psalms 
for  consolation  and  strength.     In  1538  Cellini  had 


128  THE  REFORMATION  ERA 

been  imprisoned  by  Pope  Paul  iii.  in  the  Castle  of 
St.  Angelo.  From  the  top  of  the  tower  he  made  a 
marvellous  escape,  but  broke  his  leg  in  the  effort. 
Crawling  on  all-fours  through  the  streets  of  Rome,  he 
took  refuge  in  the  Palace  of  a  Venetian  Cardinal, 
onl}^  to  find  himself,  a  few  days  later,  sold  by  his 
protector  to  the  Pope  for  a  bishopric,  and  once  more 
a  prisoner.  For  many  months  he  lay  in  an  under- 
ground cell,  the  floor  of  which  was  covered  with 
stagnant  waters  swarming  with  poisonous  insects. 
Only  for  an  hour  and  a  half  in  each  day  could  he  see 
to  read  his  Bible  by  the  feeble  light  that  crept  through 
a  tiny  opening.  In  momentary  expectation  of  death, 
he  was  cheered  by  visions,  and  became  so  absorbed 
in  pious  meditations  and  in  singing  Psalms  that  he 
ceased  to  think  of  his  past  misfortunes  or  to  dread 
his  impending  fate.  He  specially  mentions  Psalms 
li.,  "  Have  mercy  upon  me,  O  God,  after  thy  great 
goodness  "  ;  cxxx.,  "  Out  of  the  deep  have  I  called 
unto  thee,  O  Lord  "  ;  Ixii.,  "  My  soul  truly  waiteth 
still  upon  God."  When,  at  a  supreme  crisis  in  his 
fate,  a  mysterious  voice  bade  him  lose  no  time,  but 
pray  to  God  with  the  utmost  fervour,  it  was  in  a 
Psalm  that  he  clothed  his  devotions,  repeating  the 
whole  of  Psalm  xci.,  "  Whoso  dwelleth  under  the 
defence  of  the  most  High."  A  few  weeks  later  he 
was  released  through  the  intervention  of  Francis  i. 

The  graceful  fancies  of  Pagan  art  left  Luther  cold. 
He  did  not  share  the  newborn  zeal  for  classic 
literature.  To  men  of  his  temper,  leaders  of  the 
New  Learning  were  cowardly  palterers  with  truth. 
He  denounced  Erasmus  as  "  a  very  Caiaphas,"  and 
whenever  he  prayed,  prayed  "  for  a  curse  upon 
Erasmus  "  ;  to  him  also  Sir  Thomas  More  (1478- 
1535)  appeared  "  a  cruel  tyrant."  Yet  here  again 
the  Psalms  were  common  ground. 

Many  of  the  Renaissance  scholars,  in  their  eager- 
ness to  conquer  the  new  worlds  of  thought  and 
knowledge  which  opened  out  before  them,  doubtless 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS  129 

relaxed,  lost,  or  abandoned  their  earlier  faith.  It 
was  not  so  with  Christopher  Columbus,  the  man  of 
action.  The  young  Genoese  wool-comber,  who  dis- 
covered the  New  World  of  America,  was  essentially 
a  man  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  died  clad  in  the  habit 
of  St.  Francis.  His  imaginative,  enthusiastic  mind 
was  imbued  with  the  firm  conviction  that,  in  de- 
voting all  his  energies  to  his  great  idea,  he  was  the 
chosen  instrument  for  the  fulfilment  of  a  Divine 
design.  The  impulse  to  the  work  of  the  greatest 
maritime  genius  of  the  century  was  essentially  re- 
ligious. His  habitual  signature  was  an  invocation 
to  Jesus,  Mary,  and  Joseph,  placed  above  his  own 
name  of  Christopher,  or  the  Christ-bearer.  In  the 
constancy  of  his  faith  at  least,  if  in  no  other  respect, 
his  death  was  worthy  of  his  life  and  work.  In  a 
wretched  hired  lodging  at  Valladolid,  dressed  in  the 
Franciscan  habit,  fortified  by  the  rites  of  the  Church, 
he  died  on  the  eve  of  Ascension  Day,  May  20,  1 506, 
repeating,  like  John  Hus,  or  Luther,  or  More,  or 
like  Tasso,  who  sang  the  swan-song  of  Italian 
chivalry,  the  familiar  words,  "  Into  thy  hands  I 
commend  my  spirit." 

A  quarter  of  a  century  after  the  death  of  Colum- 
bus, the  empire  of  Peru  passed  into  the  hands  of 
the  Spaniards.  In  the  history  of  Pizarro's  enter- 
prise the  improbabilities  of  imaginative  fiction 
grow  pale  and  spiritless  beside  the  marvellous 
romance  of  truth.  Never  were  such  great  results 
achieved  by  more  inadequate  means  ;  never  did 
more  savage  treachery  disgrace  such  splendid 
courage.  A  bastard,  a  foundling,  and  a  priest  con- 
ceived the  audacious  project  of  conquermg  a  vast 
and  organised  empire  that  had  already  reached  a 
height  of  civilisation  in  comparison,  with  which 
Spain  was  still  plunged  in  mediaeval  barbarism. 
No  difficulties,  odds,  or  dangers  broke  the  spirit  of 
this  strange  confederacy  of  adventurous  passion, 
sordid  avarice,  and  religious  fervour.     On  Novem- 


130  THE  REFORMATION  ERA 

ber  15,  1532,  Pizarro  and  a  handful  of  followers, 
barely  200  in  number,  imperfectly  armed  and 
spent  with  the  toil  of  their  tremendous  march, 
reached  Caxamalca.  Outside  the  town,  they  found 
the  Inca,  Atahualpa,  surrounded  by  an  army  many 
thousands  strong.  For  that  night  the  Spaniards 
were  bidden  to  occupy  the  public  buildings  in  the 
square  ;  on  the  following  day  the  Inca  and  his 
chieftains  would  visit  the  strangers.  Even  the 
reckless  daring  and  heroic  bigotry  of  the  little  band 
of  knight-errants  of  discovery  might  well  have 
failed,  as,  without  possibility  of  retreat,  they  saw 
the  watchfires  of  the  surrounding  host  glittering  in 
the  darkness  "  as  thick  as  the  stars  of  heaven." 
But  Pizarro  made  his  plans  with  the  utmost  cool- 
ness. His  design  was  to  make  Atahualpa  his 
prisoner  in  the  very  face  of  his  army.  At  a  given 
signal — the  discharge  of  a  gun,  following  on  the 
wave  of  Pizarro 's  white  scarf — the  Spaniards  were 
to  rush  out  from  the  buildings  that  formed  three 
sides  of  the  square,  and  put  every  man  to  the  sword 
except  only  the  Inca.  The  morning  of  November 
16,  1532,  broke.  Day  was  ushered  in  with  solemn 
celebration  of  Mass,  and  enthusiastic  chanting  of 
Psalm  Ixxiv.,  verse  23,  "  Arise,  O  God,  maintain 
thine  own  cause."  The  sequel  affords  a  striking 
illustration  of  the  self-deception  which,  on  religious 
grounds,^  has  often  justified  cruelty.  All  day  the 
Spaniards  waited.  The  sun  was  setting  when 
Atahualpa,  borne  in  a  litter  and  accompanied  by 
several  thousand  unarmed  attendants,  entered  the 
square.  None  of  the  strangers  were  visible  except 
Fray  Vicente  de  Valverde,  a  Dominican  friar  who 
acted  as  Pizarro 's  chaplain.  With  the  crucifix  in 
one  hand  and  the  Bible  in  the  other,  he  exhorted 
Atahualpa  to  embrace  the  Christian  faith  and 
declare  himself  the  vassal  of  Charles  the  Fifth. 
The  Inca  replied  by  dashing  the  Bible  to  the 
ground.     Pizarro  waved  his  scarf ;  the  gun  fired  ;  the 


PIZARRO'S  CONQUEST  OF  PERU       131 

Spaniards,  horse  and  foot,  rushed  from  their  conceal- 
ment ;  the  massacre  began.  In  httle  more  than 
half  an  hour  thousands  of  the  Peruvians  lay  dead, 
Atahualpa  was  a  prisoner,  and  all  the  wealth  of 
Peru  was  at  Pizarro's  mercy. 

Nor  were  the  men  of  the  New  Learning,  who 
explored  new  worlds  of  knowledge,  or  rediscovered 
lost  continents  of  thought  and  literature,  necessarily 
hostile  to  the  older  faith.  Erasmus,  himself  a  com- 
mentator on  the  Psalms,  writing  from  Louvain 
(May  30,  1 5 19),  praises  Luther's  Commentaries  on 
the  Psalms,  which  pleased  him  "  prodigiously,"  and 
should  be  "  widely  read."  Pico  della  Mirandola, 
one  of  the  most  brilliant  scholars  of  the  Italian 
Renaissance,  was  the  friend  and  apologist  of  Savona- 
rola, without  whom  he  could  not  live,  and  in  whose 
church  of  San  Marco  he  lies  buried.  His  life  and 
works  were  translated  by  More.  "  Let  no  day  pass," 
writes  Pico,  "  but  thou  once,  at  the  least-wise,  present 
thyself  to  God  by  prayer,  and  falling  down  before 
Him  flat  to  the  ground  .  .  .  not  from  the  extremity 
of  thy  lips,  but  from  the  inwardness  of  thine  heart, 
cry  these  words  of  the  prophet,  '  O  remember  not 
the  sins  and  offences  of  my  youth  ;  but  according 
to  thy  mercy  think  thou  upon  me,  O  Lord,  for  thy 
goodness  '  "  (Ps.  xxv.,  verse  6).  The  advice  was 
daily  practised  by  More  himself,  even  when  he  was 
surrounded  by  the  splendours  of  the  court  of  Henry 
VIII.,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  active  life  of  a  diplo- 
matist and  statesman,  man  of  letters.  Chancellor, 
and  Treasurer.  The  Psalms  formed  part  of  his 
morning  and  evening  prayers,  and  he  had  made  a 
small  collection  of  special  psalms  for  frequent  use. 
In  the  days  of  his  disgrace,  a  prisoner  in  the  upper 
ward  of  the  Beauchamp  Tower  because  he  would  not 
swear  an  oath  against  his  conscience,  he  composed 
many  works,  chiefly  meditations  on  the  Christian 
faith,  by  the  dim  light  that  flickered  through  the 
bars  of  his  prison. 
10 


132  THE  REFORMATION  ERA 

Whatever  view  may  be  taken  of  the  course  of  the 
Protestant  Reformation  in  England,  at  the  different 
stages  of  its  progress,  it  is  difficult  to  justify  the 
public  farce  of  Queen  Catherine's  divorce  and  Anne 
Boleyn's  coronation.  With  or  without  the  Pope's 
sanction,  Henry  viii.  was  resolved  to  go  all  lengths 
in  order  to  obtain  his  will.  "  He  was,"  says  Bishop 
Stubbs,  "  the  King,  the  whole  King,  and  nothing 
but  the  King  :  he  wished  to  be  .  .  .  the  Pope,  the 
whole  Pope,  and  something  more  than  Pope."  The 
question  of  the  marriage  was  still  before  the  Pope 
when  Anne  was  crowned  (June  i,  1533),  and  when 
the  Princess  Elizabeth,  in  the  following  September, 
was  born.  In  March  1534,  an  Act  of  Parliament 
(25  Henry  VIII.,  c.  22)  declared  Catherine's  marriage 
illegal,  the  divorce  pronounced  by  Cranmer  valid, 
the  marriage  of  Anne  Boleyn  lawful,  and  her  chil- 
dren rightful  heirs  to  the  throne.  On  March  23, 
1534,  Pope  Clement  pronounced  the  marriage  of 
Henry  and  Catherine  to  be  valid  A  plain  issue  was 
thus  raised.  Armed  rebellion,  aided  by  foreign 
intervention,  was  in  the  air.  An  oath  of  allegiance 
was  framed,  the  actual  terms  of  which  seem  to  be 
doubtful  ;  a  commission  sat  at  Lambeth  to  tender 
it,  and  foremost  among  those  who  refused  to  accept 
the  oath,  in  whole  or  in  part,  stood  Sir  Thomas 
More,  and  John  Fisher,  Bishop  of  Rochester,  bell- 
wethers of  the  flock  which  adhered  to  the  older 
faith.  Both  were  committed  to  the  Tower  of  London 
in  April  1534.  Both  found  in  the  Psalms  their 
strength  and  solace. 

Twelve  years  before  his  imprisonment  began. 
More  was  writing  an  English  treatise  on  the  works 
of  Ecclesiasticus,  "  In  all  thy  works  remember  thy 
last  end,  and  thou  shalt  never  sin."  In  the  fragment 
on  Death,  he  says  :  "  Mark  this  well,  for  of  this 
thing  we  be  very  sure,  that  old  and  young,  man  and 
woman,  rich  and  poor,  prince  and  page,  all  the  while 
we  live  in  this  world,  we  be  but  prisoners,  and  be 


SIR  THOMAS  MORE  133 

within  a  sure  prison,  out  of  which  there  can  no  man 
escape.  The  prison  is  large,  and  many  prisoners  in 
it,  but  the  Jailer  can  lose  none  :  He  is  so  present  in 
every  place,  that  we  can  creep  into  no  corner  out  of 
His  sight.  For  as  holy  David  saith  to  this  Jailer, 
*  Whither  shall  I  go  from  thy  Spirit,  and  whither 
shall  I  flee  from  thy  face  ?  '  (Ps.  cxxxix.,  verse  6), 
as  who  saith — no  whither."  To  such  thoughts  his 
mind  now  naturally  reverted.  Scantily  fed,  and 
"  besides  his  old  disease  of  the  breast,  grieved  in 
the  reins  by  reason  of  gravel  and  stone,  and  with  the 
cramp  that  divers  nights  seized  him,"  he  yet  main- 
tained his  cheerful  temper.  By  her  own  earnest 
suit,  Margaret  Roper  was  allowed  to  visit  him  in  his 
cell.  On  one  occasion,  "  after  the  Seven  Psalms 
and  Litany  said  (which  whensoever  she  came  unto 
him,  ere  he  fell  into  talk  of  any  worldly  matter,  he 
used  accustomably  to  say  with  her),"  he  even  made 
light  of  the  rigour  of  his  confinement.  "  I  find,"  he 
says,  "  no  cause,  I  thank  God,  Meg,  to  reckon  myself 
in  worse  case  here  than  at  home  :  for  methinketh 
God  maketh  me  a  wanton  "  {i.e.,  a  spoiled  child), 
"  and  setteth  me  on  his  lap  and  dandleth  me." 

But  fifteen  months'  confinement  in  "a  close, 
filthy  prison,  shut  up  among  mice  and  rats,"  told 
upon  More's  strength.  When,  on  July  i,  1535,  he 
was  sentenced  to  death,  he  was  aged  by  suffering, 
his  head  white,  his  "  weak  and  broken  body  leaning 
on  a  staff,  and  even  so,  scarcely  able  to  stand." 
Five  days  later  (July  6),  he  was  executed  on  Tower 
Hill.  The  scaffold  was  unsteady,  and,  as  he  put 
his  foot  on  the  ladder,  he  said  to  the  lieutenant, 
"  I  pray  thee  see  me  safe  up,  and  for  my  coming 
down  let  me  shift  for  myself."  After  kneeling 
down  on  the  scaffold,  and  repeating  the  Psalm, 
"  Have  mercy  upon  me,  O  God  "  (Ps.  li.),  which 
had  always  been  his  favourite  prayer,  he  placed  his 
head  on  the  low  log  that  served  as  a  block,  and 
received  the  fatal  stroke. 


134  THE  REFORMATION  ERA 

Another  victim,  scarcely  less  illustrious  than  the 
Chancellor,  was  John  Fisher,  Cardinal  of  the  Holy- 
Roman  Church,  and  Bishop  of  Rochester  (1459- 
1535)..  whose  worn  face,  with  its  "  anxiously  con- 
scientious expression,"  lives  for  us  in  the  powerful 
sketch  of  Holbein.  His  public  services,  his  reputa- 
tion at  home  and  abroad,  his  pure  and  simple  life, 
his  charities,  his  great  but  unostentatious  learning, 
made  his  refusal  to  take  the  oaths  of  succession  and 
supremacy  a  matter  of  extreme  importance.  A 
collector  of  books,  the  owner  of  the  best  private 
library  in  England,  an  early  master  of  English 
prose,  he  was  a  friend  of  Erasmus,  who  wrote  of 
him  in  1510  :  "  Either  I  am  much  mistaken,  or 
Fisher  is  a  man  with  whom  none  of  our  contem- 
poraries can  be  compared,  for  holiness  of  life  or 
greatness  of  soul,"  In  his  sermons  on  the  Peni- 
tential Psalms,  preached  in  English,  early  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  at  the  "  ster3''nge  "  of  the  Lady 
Margaret,  Countess  of  Richmond,  occurs  a  passage 
which  unconsciously  foreshadows  the  part  that, 
thirty  years  later,  he  was  himself  to  play.  He  is 
commenting  on  Psalm  cii.,  verse  13,  "  Thou  shalt 
arise,  and  have  mercy  upon  Sion  :  for  it  is  time  that 
thou  have  mercy  upon  her,  yea,  the  time  is  come." 
He  shows  that  when  the  Church  was  first  built,  the 
soft  slipper  earth  in  which  the  foundation  was  set 
was  hardened  into  stone  by  the  fire  of  Love.  Peter, 
who  denied  his  Master,  became  a  rock.  So  now  he 
prays  that  God  may  "  chaunge  and  make  the  softe 
and  slypper  erth  into  harde  stones,"  and  "  set  in 
Thy  chirche  stronge  and  myghty  pyllers  that  may 
suffre  and  endure  grete  labours,  watchynge,  pouerte, 
thurst,  hungre,  colde,  and  hete,  whiche  also  shall 
not  fere  the  thretnynges  of  prynces,  persecucyon 
neyther  deth  .  .  .  for  the  glory  and  laude  of  Thy 
holy  name."  For  the  glory  of  God,  as  he  in  his 
conscience  believed,  Fisher  braved  threats,  perse- 
cution, and  death. 


CARDINAL  FISHER  135 

Fourteen  months  of  imprisonment  in  the  Bell 
Tower  of  the  Tower  of  London  were  passed  by 
Fisher,  partly  in  writing  two  devotional  treatises 
for  the  use  of  his  sister.  Possibly  the  action  of 
Paul  III.,  who.  May  20,  1535,  created  the  bishop  a 
cardinal,  hastened  his  execution.  On  Thursday, 
June  17,  he  was  sentenced  :  on  the  following 
Tuesday,  June  22,  he  was  beheaded  on  Tower 
Hill,  so  weak  and  emaciated  that  he  could  scarcely 
stand.  At  the  foot  of  the  scaffold  to  which  he  had 
been  carried,  his  strength  seemed  to  revive.  As  he 
mounted  the  steps  alone,  the  south-east  sun  shone 
full  in  his  face.  Lifting  his  hands,  he  murmured 
the  words  of  Psalm  xxxiv.,  verse  5,  "  They  had  an 
eye  unto  him,  and  were  lightened  ;  and  their  faces 
were  not  ashamed."  On  the  scaffold,  after  a  few 
words  to  the  spectators,  he  knelt  down  upon  his 
knees  in  prayer,  repeating  Psalm  xxxi.,  "  In  thee, 
O  Lord,  have  I  put  my  trust."  Then,  with  the 
joyful  mien  of  a  man  who  receives  the  boon  for 
which  he  craves,  he  received  the  blow  of  the  axe 
upon  his  slender  and  feeble  neck,  and  so  passed  to 
his  rest. 

Many  monastic  houses,  as  wtII  as  individuals, 
refused  the  oath  of  supremacy,  and  suffered  the 
penalty  in  loss  of  life,  or  of  home  and  possessions. 
Comparatively  few  yielded  to  the  temptation  of 
accepting  it.  Conspicuous  among  the  sufferers 
were  the  Franciscans  of  the  Regular  Observance  at 
Greenwich,  headed  by  their  warden,  John  Forest, 
confessor  to  Queen  Catherine,  who  was  herself  a 
tertiary  of  the  Franciscan  Order,  The  story  of 
their  sufferings  strikingly  illustrates  the  power  of 
the  Psalms.  But,  as  Forest's  life,  for  some  unknown 
reason,  was  spared  till  1538,  an  earlier  victim  may 
be  chosen  from  another  Order,  John  Haughton, 
prior  of  the  London  Charterhouse,  a  zealous  servant 
of  God,  governing  his  community  by  example 
rather    than    by   precept.     He    had    been    twenty 


136  THE  REFORMATION  ERA 

years  a  monk,  before  the  reign  of  Henry  viii.  dis- 
turbed the  peace  of  his  cloistered  hfe.  Neither  he 
nor  his  monks  had  meddled  in  the  question  of  the 
king's  marriage;  but  when,  in  1533,  the  Com- 
missioners asked  his  opinion  on  the  divorce  of 
Catherine  of  Aragon,  he  boldly  said  that  he  could 
not  understand  how  a  marriage,  ratified  by  the 
Church  and  so  long  unquestioned,  could  now  be 
undone.  In  1535,  Henry  assumed  the  title  of 
Supreme  Head,  and  the  prior  prepared  for  the  end 
which  he  saw  approaching.  From  the  text, "  O  God, 
thou  hast  cast  us  out^  and  scattered  us  abroad  " 
(Ps.  Ix.,  verse  i),  he  preached  a  sermon  in  the  chapel, 
ending  with  the  words,  "  It  is  better  that  we  should 
suffer  here  a  short  penance  for  our  faults,  than  be 
reserved  for  the  eternal  pains  of  Hell  hereafter." 
Then  he  and  the  brethren,  each  from  each,  implored 
pardon  for  any  offence  they  might  have  committed 
by  thought,  word,  or  deed,  against  one  another, 
and,  thus  prepared,  awaited  their  fate.  Haughton, 
and  the  priors  of  two  daughter  houses,  refused  to 
acknowledge  the  new  title,  were  tried  for  treason, 
condemned,  and,  on  May  4,  1535,  executed  at 
Tyburn,  with  all  the  horrible  barbarities  of  the  time. 
Haughton  suffered  first.  "  Pray  for  me,"  he  said, 
"  and  have  mercy  on  my  brethren,  of  whom  I  have 
been  the  unworthy  prior."  Then,  kneeling  down, 
and  reciting  a  few  verses  of  Psalm  xxxi.,  he  calmly 
resigned  himself  into  the  hands  of  the  executioner. 
All  died  with  the  same  calm,  unflinching  courage. 

In  the  case  of  England,  whatever  might  have  been 
the  personal  wishes  of  Henry  viii.,  there  could  be 
no  turning  back.  Directly  attacked  b}^  the  Pro- 
testant Reformers,  threatened  from  various  direc- 
tions by  the  New  Learning,  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  roused  herself  from  her  torpor.  The  assault 
was  not  only  checked,  but  for  the  time  driven  back  ; 
lost  ground  was  recovered  ;  new  spheres  of  work 
were   conquered.     Among   all   the   adherents   who 


FRANCIS  XAVIER  137 

rallied  to  the  defence  of  the  Church,  none  were  more 
zealous,  none  more  self-devoted,  none,  in  two 
different  senses  of  the  word,  more  successful,  than 
St.  Francis  Xavier  or  St.  Teresa. 

On  December  2,  1552,  Francis  Xavier  lay  dying 
on  the  island  of  San  Chan,  half  a  day's  sail  from 
Canton.  Winged  by  pity,  armed  by  faith,  and 
fired  by  love,  he  had  travelled  seas  and  explored 
lands  that  were  only  known  to  Europe  by  vague 
report.  He  had  braved  dangers  and  endured 
privations  which  might  well  be  thought  super- 
human, and  literally  compassed  sea  and  land  to 
win  a  single  human  soul  to  Christianity.  The 
spirit  of  love  which  is  breathed  in  the  well-known 
hymn  attributed  to  his  pen  ("  O  Deus,  ego  amo 
Te  "),^  was  the  consuming  passion  of  his  life  : 

"  My  God  !     1  love  Thee,  not  to  gain 
The  bliss  of  Thy  eternal  Reign, 
Nor  to  escape  the  fiery  Lot 
Reserved  for  those  that  love  Thee  not. 
Thou,  Thou,  my  Jesu,  on  the  Tree 
Didst  in  Thine  Arms  encompass  me. 

Thou  didst  endure  the  Nails,  the  Lance, 

Disgraces  manifold,  the  Trance 

Of  Bloody  Sweat,  and  boundless  Seas 

Of  Bitterness  and  Anguishes, 

Nay  even  Death's  last  Agony — 

And  this  for  me — for  sinful  me  ! 

Most  loving  Jesu,  shall  this  move 
No  like  return  of  Love  for  Love  ? 

Above  all  things  I  love  Thee  best. 
Yet  not  with  Thought  of  Interest  : 
Not  thus  to  win  Thy  promised  Land, 
Not  thus  to  ward  Thy  threat'ning  Hand  ; 
But  as  Thoii  lov'st  me,  so  do  I 
Love,  and  shall  ever  love — and  why  ? 

Because  Thou  art  my  God  and  King, 
The  Source  and  End  of  Everything." 

It  had  been  Xavier 's  ambition  to  carry  the  Gospel 

^  The  version  given  above  enters  into  no  vain  competition  with 
Caswall's  beautiful  rendering  of  the  hymn  ;  but  it  may  be  thought 
to  preserve  more  faithfully  the  mediaeval  quaintness  of  the  original, 


138  THE  REFORMATION  ERA 

message  to  China.  But  for  weeks  he  could  find  no 
one  who  dared  to  brave  the  penal  laws  of  that 
country.  It  was  death  for  foreigners  to  enter  the 
empire  ;  it  was  death  to  anyone  who  conveyed 
them  within  its  borders.  At  last  he  bribed  a 
merchant  to  land  him  on  the  coast.  Fever  struck 
him  down  while  awaiting  the  arrival  of  his  agent, 
tendentemqne  inanus  ripce  ulterioris  amore  {"  and 
stretching  forth  his  hands  in  longing  for  the  farther 
shore  ").  For  a  fortnight  he  lay  in  his  cabin  : 
then  he  was  put  on  shore,  and  a  shelter  was  hastily 
erected  of  brushwood  and  coarse  grass.  Feeling 
that  his  end  was  near,  he  desired  that  his  attendants 
should  leave  the  hut.  Far  from  his  native  land, 
without  a  friend  at  his  side,  racked  with  pain,  his 
death  is  enviable  even  b}^  the  happiest  of  mankind. 
To  mortal  eyes  he  was  alone.  But  to  his  unclouded 
vision  there  floated  round  him  bright  forms  ready 
to  bear  him  to  his  heavenly  home,  and,  as  the  wings 
of  the  approaching  angel  of  death  winnowed  the 
mists  from  before  his  eyes,  he  saw  the  blessed  figure 
of  his  Master  standing  with  outstretched  arms  to 
welcome  His  faithful  servant.  As  he  entered  the 
dark  valley,  the  glow  upon  his  face  was  of  sunrise, 
not  of  sunset  ;  and  it  was  a  ray  from  the  Divine 
Presence  itself  which  lit  up  his  face,  as  with  an 
expiring  effort  he  fixed  his  eyes  upon  his  crucifix, 
and,  gathering  all  his  strength  to  utter  the  words, 
"  In  thee,  O  Lord,  have  I  put  my  trust  :  let  me 
never  be  put  to  confusion  "  (Ps.  xxxi.,  verse  i), 
breathed  his  last. 

Xavier  has  been  called  the  canonised  saint  of 
Europe.  It  is  not,  on  the  other  hand,  everyone  who 
sympathises  with  the  mysticism  of  Teresa,  or  gives 
credence  to  her  visions.  Yet  few  can  withhold 
their  admiration  from  the  solitary,  sickly  woman, 
who  restored  the  austerities  of  Spanish  conventual 
life,  and  replanted  in  Spain  the  great  monastic 
ideals  of  poverty,  humility,  and  self-sacrifice. 


TERESA  OF  SPAIN  139 

Born  in  1515,  at  Avila,  she  began  in  early  child- 
hood to  show  the  bent  of  her  mind.  The  lives  of 
saints  were  her  nursery  tales  ;  her  doll's  house  was 
a  nunnery  ;  at  the  age  of  seven,  she  set  out  with 
her  little  brother  to  walk  to  Africa,  and  win  from 
the  Moors  the  crown  of  martyrdom.  Such  a  child- 
hood prepares  us  for  a  life  of  ascetic  zeal :  it  gives 
no  hint  of  the  calm,  self-reliant,  tranquil  nature, 
which,  combined  with  ready  wit,  charm  of  manner, 
and  an  eloquent  tongue,  enthralled  the  greatest  of 
Spanish  grandees.  Her  enthusiasm,  her  patience, 
her  adroitness  triumphed  over  difficulties  which 
others  would  have  found  insuperable.  Though 
continually  harassed  by  intrigues  and  opposition, 
she  established  sixteen  nunneries  of  the  Reformed 
Carmelites  and  fourteen  foundations  of  friars  be- 
longing to  the  same  Rule.  In  worldly  matters 
shrewd,  energetic,  and  a  keen  judge  of  character, 
Teresa  seemed  a  different  being  from  the  enrap- 
tured mystic  who  in  her  autobiography — a  favourite 
book  of  the  Duke  of  Alva — sets  down  her  visions 
and  illuminations.  Nowhere,  and  by  no  man  or 
woman,  was  a  stronger  resistance  offered  to  the 
new  ideas  that  warred  against  mediaeval  opinions 
than  was  made  in  Spain  by  Teresa.  At  her  voice 
the  dying  aspirations  of  a  previous  age  revived,  as 
she  travelled  through  the  country,  attracting  to  her 
austere,  ascetic  Rule  many  of  the  best  and  most 
conscientious  men  and  women  of  the  day.  The 
little  inns  where  she  stopped  in  her  ceaseless  wan- 
derings are  still,  after  the  lapse  of  three  centuries, 
hallowed  spots  to  the  inhabitants  of  rural  Spain, 

iVbout  Teresa  hangs  the  pathos  of  a  lost  cause, 
though  she  herself  was  spared  the  pain  of  disillusion. 
She  did  not  live  to  see  the  edifice,  on  which  she 
had  lavished  the  labours  of  a  lifetime,  crumbling 
to  decay.  Death  came  to  the  worn-out  woman 
at  Alba,  October  4,  1582.  On  her  lips  were  the 
words  (Ps.  h.,  verses  lo-ii,  17),  "  Make  me  a  clean 


I40  THE  REFORMATION  ERA 

heart,  O  God,  and  renew  a  right  spirit  within  me. 
Cast  me  not  away  from  thy  presence,  and  take  not 
thy  holy  Spirit  from  me.  The  sacrifice  of  God  is 
a  troubled  spirit  ;  a  broken  and  contrite  heart,  O 
God,  shalt  thou  not  despise." 

First  from  one  side,  then  from  the  other,  as  the 
fierce  struggle  between  Roman  Catholic  and  Pro- 
testant swayed  backwards  and  forwards,  the  note 
of  encouragement,  comfort,  or  deliverance  sounds 
clear  and  high  for  combatants  on  either  side,  in 
the  verses  of  the  Psalms.  As  More,  Fisher,  and 
Haughton,  or  as  Xavier  and  Teresa,  had  drawn 
strength  from  the  Psalter,  so,  in  their  day  of  trial, 
Protestants  like  Bishop  Hooper,  or  Bishop  Ridley, 
and  at  a  later  stage  in  the  struggle,  Jesuits  like 
Robert  Southwell,  faced  the  terrors  of  the  stake  and 
the  torment  of  the  rack  with  words  from  the  same 
book  upon  their  lips,  and,  as  they  spoke  them, 
seemed  possessed  by  a  heavenly  ecstasy. 

John  Hooper,  at  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Henry 
VIII.,  had  fled  for  his  life  to  Strasburg  ;  had  married, 
and,  March  1547,  settled  in  Zurich.  Two  years 
later,  he  determined  to  return  to  England,  in  order 
to  help  those  who  were  contending  for  the  religious 
principles  which  he  himself  zealously  advocated. 
He  knew  his  danger.  Taking  leave  of  his  friend 
Bullinger  in  March  1549,  he  used  words  prophetic 
of  his  fate.  He  promised  to  write  to  those  who 
had  shown  him  so  much  kindness  ;  "  but,"  he 
added,  "  the  last  news  of  all,  I  shall  not  be  able  to 
write  :  for  there,  where  I  shall  take  most  pains, 
there  shall  you  hear  of  me  to  be  burnt  to  ashes." 
In  1 55 1  he  was  consecrated  Bishop  of  Gloucester. 
No  man  ever  entered  upon  his  work  with  a  stricter 
sense  of  dut}^  If  he  erred,  it  was  the  severity  of 
the  discipline  which  he  exacted  from  himself  as 
well  as  from  others.  On  the  accession  of  Queen 
Mary,  he  was  a  marked  man.  He  might  have 
escaped,    but     he    refused.     "  I    am,"     he    said, 


JOHN  HOOPER  141 

"  thoroughly  persuaded  to  tarry,  and  to  Hve  and 
die  with  my  sheep."  In  September,  1553,  he  was 
committed  to  the  Fleet  prison,  to  a  "  vile  and 
stinking  chamber,"  with  nothing  for  his  bed  b.ut  a 
"  little  pad  of  straw  "  and  "  a  rotten  covering." 
In  his  prison  he  wrote  an  "  Exposition  "  of  Psalms 
xxiii.,  Ixii.,  Ixxiii.,  Ixxvii.  "  All  men  and  women," 
he  says,  "  have  this  life  and  this  world  appointed 
unto  them  for  their  winter  and  season  of  storms. 
The  summer  draweth  near,  and  then  shall  we  be 
fresh,  orient,  sweet,  amiable,  pleasant,  acceptable, 
immortal,  and  blessed,  for  ever  and  ever  ;  and  no 
man  shall  take  us  from  it.  We  must,  therefore, 
in  the  meantime  learn  out  of  this  verse  to  say  unto 
God,  whether  it  be  winter  or  summer,  pleasure  or 
pain,  liberty  or  imprisonment,  life  or  death,  '  Truly 
God  is  loving  unto  Israel,  even  unto  such  as  are  of 
a  clean  heart  '  "  (Ps.  Ixxiii.,  verse  i).  To  his  wife, 
Anne  Hooper,  who  had  escaped  to  the  continent, 
he  wrote  a  letter  (October  13,  1553),  bidding  her 
read  Psalm  Ixxvii.  ("  I  will  cry  unto  God  with  my 
voice,"  etc.),  because  of  the  "  great  consolation  " 
which  it  contains  for  those  who  are  in  "  anguish 
of  mind  "  ;  and  Psalm  Ixxxvii.,  "  wherein  is  con- 
tained the  prayer  of  a  man  that  was  brought  into 
extreme  anguish  and  misery,  and,  being  vexed  with 
adversaries  and  persecutions,  saw  nothing  but  death 
and  hell."  Also  he  recommends  Psalms  vi.,  xxii., 
XXX.,  xxxi.,  xxxviii.,  Ixix.,  for  their  lessons  of 
"  patience  and  consolation  "  at  times  "  when  the 
mind  can  take  no  understanding,  nor  the  heart  any 
joy  of  God's  promises," 

It  was  not  till  February  9,  1555,  that,  by  his 
death.  Hooper  passed  from  the  winter  of  imprison- 
ment into  the  summer  of  eternal  life.  The  bishop 
had  been  sent  to  Gloucester  for  execution.  If  his 
enemies  hoped  that  his  demeanour  at  the  stake 
would  weaken  his  hold  upon  his  people,  they  were 
disappointed.     With    unflinching  courage,   he  met 


142  THE  REFORMATION  ERA 

the  tortures  of  the  fire — needlessly  protracted  for 
three-quarters  of  an  hour  by  the  greenness  and 
insufficiency  of  the  materials,  resigning  himself  to 
his  fate  with  the  words,  which  More,  Fisher,  and,  it 
may  be  added,  Thomas  Cromwell  had  used,  "  Into 
thy  handes  I  commend  my  spirite  ;  thou  haste 
redeemed  me,  O  God  of  truthe  "  (Ps.  xxxi.,  verse  6). 

Psalm  ci.  was  the  favourite  psalm  of  Nicholas 
Ridley  (1500-55),  Bishop  of  London.  He  often, 
as  Fox  relates,  read  and  expounded  it  to  his  house- 
hold at  Fulham,  "  bein^  marvellous  careful  over 
his  family,  that  they  might  be  a  spectacle  of  all 
virtue  and  honesty  to  others."  On  the  night 
preceding  his  execution,  his  brother  offered  to  pass 
his  last  hours  in  his  company.  But  the  bishop 
refused,  saying  that  he  meant  to  go  to  bed  and  sleep 
as  quietly  as  he  ever  did  in  his  life  : — "  I  will  lay 
me  down  in  peace,  and  take  my  rest  ;  for  it  is  thou. 
Lord,  only,  that  makest  me  dwell  in  safety  " 
(Ps.  iv.,  verse  9).  The  next  morning  he  was 
chained  to  the  stake  in  the  town  ditch,  opposite 
the  south  front  of  Balliol  College,  Oxford.  As  the 
flames  rose  round  him,  he  exclaimed,  "  with  a 
wonderful  loud  voice,  In  manus  tuas,  Domine, 
commendo  spiritum  meum  (Ps.  xxxi,,  verse  6, 
"  Into  thy  hands,  O  Lord,  I  commend  my  spirit  ")  : 
Domine,  recipe  spiritum  meum,"  and  then  in  English, 
"  Lord,  Lord,  receive  my  spirit." 

Equally  courageous,  equally  firm  in  their  religious 
convictions,  were  those,  who,  as  the  tide  of  victory 
ebbed  and  flowed,  suffered  a  violent  death  on  the 
other  side.  The  dungeons  in  the  Tower  still  record 
the  power  of  the  Psalms  to  soothe  the  "  sorrowful 
sighing  "  of  Roman  Catholics  who  suffered  for  their 
faith.  Here,  for  example,  are  the  words  of  Ps.  cxi., 
verse  10  ("  The  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  beginning  of 
wisdom  "),  inscribed  by  Charles  Bailly  on  the  walls 
of  his  cell  in  the  Beauchamp  or  Cobham  Tower  : 
"  Principium  sapientie  timor  Domini,  I.H.S.X.P.S. 


PRISONERS  IN  THE  TOWER  143 

Be  frend  to  one.  Be  ennemye  to  none.  Anno  D. 
1 571,  10  Sef)t."  Here,  again,  is  the  inscription 
carved  by  Philip  Howard,  Earl  of  Arundel,  in  1587: 
"  Gloria  et  honore  eum  coronasti  Domine  "  ("  Thou 
madest  him  lower  than  the  angels  ;  to  crown  him 
with  glory  and  worship,"  Ps.  viii.,  verse  5).  Here, 
lastly,  is  another,  hidden  for  three  centuries  under 
the  whitewash  in  St.  Martin's  Tower,  and  only 
brought  to  light  in  1902.  Beneath  an  emblem  of 
the  Trinity  appear  the  sacred  letters  "  I.H.S.,"  and 
then  the  name,  "  George  Beisley,  Priest."  On  the 
left  is  a  shield  containing  the  fleur-de-lis,  the  word 
"  Maria,"  and  the  date  "  1590."  A  mutilated  Latin 
inscription  follows,  in  which  words  are  illegible  or 
wanting  ;  but  it  seems  to  be  from  Ps.  xlii.,  verse  i  : 
"  Like  as  the  hart  desireth  the  water-brooks  ;  so 
longeth  my  soul  after  thee,  O  God."  But  in  the 
history  of  Robert  Southwell,  a  Jesuit  and  an  Eliza- 
bethan poet,  the  power  of  the  Psalms  is  illustrated 
in  fullest  detail.  Born  in  1 560,  he  came  to  England 
twenty-six  years  later,  knowing  well  the  peril  that 
he  ran.  To  be  a  Roman  Catholic  was  a  crime  ;  to 
be  a  priest,  high  treason  ;  to  be  a  Jesuit  was  to  be  a 
wild  beast  and  hunted  down  as  vermin.  In  a  letter, 
written  in  January,  1590,  he  describes  the  fate  of 
two  priests  and  other  brethren  in  Bridewell,  a  fate 
which  at  any  moment  might  be  his  own.  "  Some," 
he  says,  "  are  there  hung  up,  for  whole  days,  by  the 
hands,  in  such  manner  that  they  can  but  just  touch 
the  ground  with  the  tips  of  their  toes.  In  fine, 
they  that  are  kept  in  that  prison  truly  live  in  the 
horrible  pit,  in  the  mire  and  clay  (Ps.  xl.,  verse  2). 
This  purgatory  we  hourly  look  for,  in  which  Top- 
cliffe  and  Young  .  .  .  exercise  all  manners  of  tor- 
ments. But  come  what  pleaseth  God,  we  hope  that 
we  shall  be  able  to  bear  all  in  Him  that  strengthens 
us.  In  the  meantime,  we  pray  that  they  may  be 
put  to  confusion  that  work  iniquity  ;  and  that  the 
Lord  may  speak  peace  to  His  people,  that,  as  the 


144  THE  REFORMATION  ERA 

royal  prophet  says,  '  His  glory  may  dwell  in  our 
land  '  "  (Ps.  Ixxxv.,  verse  9). 

In  a  later  letter  he  alludes  to  the  martyrdoms  of 
Bayles  and  Horner,  and  the  effect  which  their  holy 
ends  had  produced  upon  the  people,  "  With  such 
dews  as  these  the  Church  is  watered,  ut  in  stillicidiis 
hujusmodi  Icetelur  genninans  (Ps.  Ixv.,  verse  11). 
We  also  look  for  the  time  (if  we  are  not  unworthy 
of  so  great  a  glory)  when  our  day  (like  that  of  the 
hired  servant)  shall  come." 

He  had  not  long  to  wait.  In  1 592  he  was  betrayed 
by  a  woman,  Anne  Bellamy,  into  the  hands  of  Top- 
cliffe,  who  boasted  that  "  he  never  did  take  so 
weighty  a  man,  if  he  be  rightly  considered."  Thir- 
teen times  tortured,  no  word  was  wTung  from  him. 
Not  even  would  he  confess  the  colour  of  the  horse 
on  which  he  had  ridden,  lest  his  enemies  should  gain 
a  clue  to  his  companion.  Thus,  to  quote  his  own 
words,  with  "  murd'red  life  "  he  couched  in  "  Death's 
abode,"  sighing  for  the  kindly  touch  of  death  to  end 
his  misery  : 

"  O  Life  !    what  letts  thee  from  a  quicke  decease  ? 

0  Death  !    what  drawes  thee  from  a  present  pra5'e  ? 
My  feast  is  done,  my  soule  would  be  at  ease, 

My  grace  is  said  ;    O  death  !    come  take  away. 

1  Uve,  but  such  a  life  as  ever  dyes  ; 

I  dye,  but  such  a  death  as  never  endes  ; 
My  death  to  end  my  dying  Ufe  denyes, 
And  hfe  my  Uving  death  no  whitt  amends." 

In  his  lonely  misery,  he  compares  himself  like 
David  to  the  sparrow  and  the  pelican  (Ps.  cii.,  verses 

"  In  eaves  sole  sparrowe  sitts  not  more  alone. 
Nor  mourning  pelican  in  desert  wilde. 
Than  sely  I,  that  solitary  mone, 
From  highest  hopes  to  hardest  happ  exil'd  : 
Sometyme,  O  blisfuU  tyme  !    was  Vertue's  meede 
Ayme  to  my  thoughtes,  guide  to  my  word  and  deede. 


ROBERT  SOUTHWELL  145 

But  feares  are  now  my  pheares/  greife  my  delight, 
My  teares  my  drinke,  my  famisht  thoughtes  my  bredd  ; 
Day  full  of  dumpes,  nurse  of  unrest  the  nighte, 
My  garmentes  gives, ^  a  bloody  feilde  my  bedd  ; 
My  sleape  is  rather  death  than  deathe's  allye. 
Yet  kill'd  with  murd'ring  pangues  I  cannot  dye." 

Three  years  he  Ungered  in  prison,  first  in  a  filthy 
dungeon  in  the  Tower,  and  then  in  a  better  cell 
where  he  was  allowed  the  books  for  which  he  asked 
— the  Bible  and  the  Works  of  St.  Bernard.  At 
last  his  end  came.  On  February  21,  1595,  he  was 
drawn  on  a  sledge  from  Newgate  through  the  streets 
to  Tyburn.  Rising  up  in  the  cart,  with  pinioned 
hands,  and  with  the  rope  round  his  neck,  he  made  a 
short  address  to  the  people  who  had  flocked  to  see 
his  execution.  Then,  looking  for  the  cart  to  be 
drawn  away,  he  blessed  himself  as  well  as  his  bonds 
allowed,  and  "  with  his  eyes  rais'd  up  to  heaven, 
repeated,  with  great  calmness  of  mind  and  counte- 
nance, these  words  of  the  Psalmist, '  Into  thy  hands, 
O  Lord,  I  commend  my  spirit '  "  (Ps.  xxxi.,  verse  6). 
Such  was  the  effect  produced  by  his  courage, 
that  the  bystanders  interfered  to  prevent  the  exe- 
cutioner from  cutting  the  rope  till  he  was  dead,  in 
order  that  the  ghastl}^  formalities  of  disembowel- 
ling and  quartering  might  not  be  carried  out  on 
his  living  body. 

^  i.e.,  companions  or  bedfellows.  ^  i.e.,  fetters. 


CHAPTER    VI 

The  Struggle   between    Protestant   England 
AND  Roman  Catholic  Spain 

The  Psalms  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  the  English  Prayer-book  version  ; 
metrical  translations,  Germany,  France,  England,  Scotland  ; 
growth  of  the  influence  of  the  Psalms  in  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries  ;  Lady  Jane  Grey  ;  the  Duke  of  Suffolk  ; 
Counts  Egmont  and  Horn  ;  accession  of  Queen  Elizabeth  ; 
the  murder  of  Darnley ;  execution  of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots ; 
the  Spanish  Armada  ;  the  Turkey  merchantmen  ;  the  wreck 
of  the  Tobie  ;  the  Earl  of  Essex  ;  Burghley  ;  Francis  Bacon  ; 
Shakespeare  ;  Richard  Hooker  ;  Bishop  Jewel  ;  George  Her- 
bert ;   Hooker  on  the  Psalms. 

THROUGHOUT  the  Middle  Ages,  the  Bible  as 
a  whole  was,  except  to  the  clergy,  a  sealed 
book.  But  the  Psalms  were  permitted  to  be  in  the 
hands  of  laymen  ;  the  Council  of  Toulouse  (1220) 
excepted  them  from  the  general  prohibition  which 
forbade  the  use  of  the  Old  Testament  to  the  laity. 
Versions  in  Anglo-Norman,  or  Old  English,  are 
among  the  earliest  specimens  of  our  vernacular 
literature.  The  translation  and  commentary  of 
Richard  Rolle  of  Hampole  {circa  1325)  illustrate,  on 
its  spiritual  side,  one  of  the  movements  which  led 
up  to  the  Reformation.  Mediaeval  Primers  con- 
tained a  selection  of  the  Psalms,  sundry  prayers, 
and  a  Kalendar  in  which  were  sometimes  entered 
the  births  and  deaths  of  families,  or  the  dates  of 
events  like  the  battles  in  the  Wars  of  the  Roses. 
Our  Prayer-book  version  of  the  Psalter  in  prose, 
originally  made  by  Tyndall  and  Coverdale,  subse- 
quently corrected  by  Cranmer  and  his  colleagues, 

X46 


THE  PSALMS  AS  HYMNS  147 

was  put  forth  in  the  Bishops'  Bible  of  1541.  Its 
rhythmic  movement  preserves  something  of  the 
cadenced  and  sonorous  roll  of  the  Latin  version, 
and  thus,  by  wedding  English  words  to  mediaeval 
harmonies,  it  links  together  old  and  new  forms  of 
divine  worship.  Translated  into  the  vulgar  tongue, 
the  Psalms  seemed  to  gather  fresh  youth  and  vigour. 
They  gained  their  full  power,  answering  every  need, 
adapting  themselves  to  all  spiritual  conditions. 
Now  the  stream  of  historical  association,  already 
broad  and  deep,  becomes  a  flood,  whose  force  anH 
volume  are  swollen  by  metrical  translations  set  to 
music,  and  sung  by  congregations  at  public  worship. 
The  Psalms  in  Latin,  as  well  as  hymns  and  se- 
quences in  the  same  tongue,  had  been  consecrated 
by  centuries  of  use  in  public  worship.  But  they 
were  chanted  by  priests  or  choristers,  and  to  the 
people  they  were  for  the  most  part  unintelligible. 
Church  hymns  to  be  sung  by  the  whole  congregation 
in  the  vulgar  tongue  were  the  special  creation  of  the 
Lutherans.  To  Luther  the  German  people  owed 
not  only  the  catechism,  and  the  Bible,  translated 
into  forcible,  racy,  idiomatic  language,  but  also  a 
hymn-book.  Three  of  his  best-known  hymns,  "  Ach 
Gott  vom  Himmel,  sieh  darein  "  (Ps.  xii.,  "  Ah 
God,  from  heav'n  look  down,  and  see  "),  "  Ein' 
feste  Burg  "  (Ps.  xlvi.),  "  Aus  tiefer  Noth  schrei  ich 
zu  dir  "  (Ps.  cxxx.,  "  Out  of  the  depths  I  cry  to 
Thee  "),  are  founded  on  psalms.  Burkhard  Waldis 
of  Hesse  (148 5-1 557)  versified  the  whole  Psalter, 
and  other  Lutherans  like  Justus  Jonas  ("  Wo  Gott 
der  Herr  nicht  bei  uns  halt,"  Ps.  cxxiv.,  "  If 
God  were  not  upon  our  side  "),  or  Philip  Nicolai 
("  Wie  schon  leuchtet  der  Morgenstern,"  Ps.  xlv., 
"  O  Morning  Star  !  how  fair  and  bright  "),  or  Paul 
Gerhardt  ("  Ich,  der  ich  oft  in  tiefes  Leid,"  Ps.  cxlv., 
"  I  who  so  oft  in  deep  distress  "),  followed  Luther  in 
basing  their  hymns  on  psalms.  But  their  special 
contributions  to  divine  worship  were  rather  original 
II 


148    CATHOLICS  AGAINST  PROTESTANTS 

hymns  than  metrical  versions  of  the  Psalter.  The 
French  Lutheran  Church  held  the  same  views  as 
their  German  brethren.  But  with  other  Reformed 
bodies,  and  especially  with  the  followers  of  Calvin  or 
Zwingli,  it  was  different.  Separating  more  entirely 
from  the  past,  revolting  from  the  human  inter- 
vention of  the  priesthood  in  prayer  or  praise,  wor- 
shipping the  Bible  as  a  new-found  book,  venerating 
its  text  with  almost  superstitious  reverence,  they 
rejected  original  hymns,  treated  the  Hebrew  Psalter 
as  the  only  inspired  manual  of  devotional  praise, 
and  concentrated  their  efforts  on  adapting  its 
language  to  congregational  singing.  The  Psalms, 
in  metrical  versions,  thus  gained  new  dignity, 
authority,  and  popularity,  by  their  exclusive  use  in 
the  public  worship  of  the  Reformed  Churches.  The 
more  completely  the  Reformers  severed  themselves 
from  the  Middle  Ages,  the  more  absolutely  they 
swept  away  the  venerable  liturgies  and  beautiful 
hymns  of  the  Fathers  and  Doctors  of  the  Church, 
the  greater  was  their  reverence  for  the  Psalms,  w^hich 
were  the  daily  bread  of  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy. 
Earty  in  the  sixteenth  century  (1533),  Clement 
Marot,^  the  favourite  of  Marguerite  de  Valois,  and 
valet  de  chambre  to  Francis  i.,  began  to  translate 
the  Psalms  into  French  verse,  and  his  translations 
were  circulated  in  manuscript  throughout  the 
King's  Court.  His  sandes  chansonnettes ,  set  to  simple 
ballad  tunes,  drove  from  the  field  the  love-songs 
of  gallants,  and   Marot's  verses  were  sung  by  the 

f)rinces  and  princesses,  the  royal  mistresses,  and  the 
ords  and  ladies  of  the  luxurious  Courts  of  Francis  i. 
and  Henry  11.  The  translation,  completed  partly 
by  Marot,  partly  by  Beza  and  others,  passed  into 

^  Marot's  version  of  Psalm  vi.  appeared  in  1533,  at  the  end  of 
the  first  part  of  Le  Miroir  de  treschrestienne  Princesse  Marguerite  de 
France,  Royne  de  Navarre  .  .  .  auquel  elle  voit  et  son  neant  et  son  tout. 
Paris,  1533,  i8mo.  He  did  not  continue  the  work  till  1537,  and 
it  was  not  till  1542  that  his  Trente  PseaiiUnes  de  David,  mis  enfran- 
coys  par  Clement  Marot,  valet  de  chambre  du  Roy,  were  published. 


METRICAL  VERSION  OF  PSALMS      149 

the  hands  of  the  people.  In  1558,  in  the  Pre  aux 
Geres  at  Paris,  thousands  of  persons  assembled 
every  evening  to  chant  the  Psalms  to  the  music 
of  Louis  Bourgeois,  Guillaume  Franc,  and  Claude 
Goudimel,  and  among  the  singers  might  be  heard 
the  King  of  Navarre,  and  the  greatest  nobles  of 
France. 

In  England,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  viii.,  Thomas 
Sternhold,  "  groome  of  ye  Kynges  Majesties  roobes," 
began  to  translate  the  Psalms  "  for  his  own  godly 
solace."  As  a  boy  of  twelve,  so  the  story  runs, 
Edward  vi.  heard  the  "  groome  "  singing  the  Psalms 
to  the  organ,  and  expressed  his  delight  at  the  words 
and  the  music.  The  first  edition  of  Sternhold 's 
Psalms,  perhaps  published  in  1548,  included  nine- 
teen translations.  The  third  edition  (1551)  con- 
tained forty-four  psalms,  thirty-seven  by  Sternhold 
and  seven  by  Hopkins.  In  dedicating  the  book  to 
Edward  vi.,  Sternhold  says  :  "  vSeeing  that  your 
tender  and  godhe  zeale  doth  more  delight  in  the 
holie  songs  of  veritie  than  in  any  faymed  rymes  of 
vanytie,  I  am  encouraged  to  travayle  further  in  the 
said  booke  of  Psalms."  To  the  versions  of  vStern- 
hold  and  Hopkins,  seven  Psalms,  translated  by 
Whittingham,  making  fifty-one  in  all,  were,  added 
in  the  Genevan  edition  of  1556.  But  the  first  com- 
plete version  of  the  Psalter  was  published  by  Daye 
in  1562,  and  the  renderings  were  the  work  of  many 
hands.  Another  complete  translation  into  verse 
was  made  by  Matthew  Parker,  afterwards  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury.  During  the  Marian  perse- 
cutions, close  search  was  made  for  him,  and  he  only 
saved  himself  by  flight.  In  one  of  his  escapes,  a 
fall  from  his  horse  probably  laid  the  seeds  of  the 
disease  from  which  he  subsequently  died.  Yet  he 
seems  to  have  passed  his  time  in  contentment, 
cheered  by  the  work  on  which  he  was  engaged.  On 
his  birthday,  August  6,  1557,  he  wrote  in  his 
Diary  :  "  I  persist  in  the  same  constancy,  upholden 


ISO   CATHOLICS  AGAINST  PROTESTANTS 

by  the  grace  and  goodness  of  my  Lord  and  Saviour, 
Jesus  Christ,  by  whose  inspiration  I  have  finished 
the  Book  of  Psalms  turned  into  vulgar  verse."  It 
was,  however,  the  composite  work  of  Sternhold, 
Hopkins,  Whittingham,  Wisedome,  WiUiam  Kethe, 
John  Craig,  and  others,  which  remained  in  general 
use  from  1563  till  1698,  when  the  old  version  was 
superseded  in  the  Established  Church  by  that  of 
Tate  and  Brady. 

To  scholars  and  to  critics  the  metrical  translation 
often  seems  to  be  sheer  doggerel  ;  yet  its  popularity 
and  its  influence  in  extending  a  knowledge  of  the 
Psalms  can  hardly  be  exaggerated.  Fuller  speaks  of 
the  versifiers  as  having  drunk  more  of  Jordan  than 
of  Helicon,  and  adds  that  two  hammerers  on  a 
smith's  anvil  would  have  made  better  music. 
Queen  Elizabeth  condemned  the  new  "  Geneva 
jigs."  Edward  Phillips,  the  Cavalier  poet,  describes 
some  one  singing  "  with  woful  noise," 

"  Like  a  crack'd  saints'  bell  jarring  in  the  steeple, 
Tom  Sternhold's  wretched  prick-song  for  the  people." 

The  sound  of  psalm-singing,  as  he  heard  it  issuing 
from  a  church,  moved  the  Earl  of  Rochester  to 
write  the  lines  : 

"  Sternhold  and  Hopkins  had  great  qualms, 
When  they  translated  David's  Psalms, 

To  make  the  heart  right  glad  : 
But  had  it  been  King  David's  fate 
To  hear  thee  sing  and  them  translate, 

By  God  !  'twould  set  him  mad  I  " 

Yet,  in  spite  of  the  judgment  of  fastidious  taste, 
the  version  was  so  popular  that,  after  the  regular 
services,  as  Bishop  Jewel  notes,  six  thousand  persons, 
old  and  young,  of  both  sexes,  might  be  heard  chant- 
ing the  Psalms  in  metre  at  Paul's  Cross.  Mrs.  Ford  ^ 
imagined  that  the  looth  Psalm  would  not  agree 
with  the  tune  of  "  Green  sleeves."  But  the  "  grand 
1  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  Act  II.,  scene  i. 


THE  PURITAN  ANTHEM  151 

old  Puritan  anthem,"  ^  "  All  people  that  on  earth 
do  dwell,"  composed  by  William  Kethe,  a  friend  of 
John  Knox,  and  set  to  the  music  of  Louis  Bour- 
geois, survives  all  the  changes  of  thought  or  fashion 
that  the  progress  of  four  centuries  has  \\dtnessed. 

In  Scotland  it  had  been  the  ambition  of  James  i. 
to  reunite  once  more  the  offices  of  king  and  psalmist. 
But  though  his  version,  to  which  he  is  said  to  have 
contributed  thirt}*  psalms,  was  sanctioned  by  Charles 
I.  in  1634,  it  was  never  accepted  by  the  Scottish 
people.  They  clung  to  the  book  introduced  by  Knox 
from  Geneva,  in  which  renderings  by  Kethe,  Craig, 
and  others  were  substituted  for  some  of  those  con- 
tained in  Sternhold's  Psalter.  Printed  in  1564,  it 
had  been  the  psalm-book  of  the  Scottish  Reformers. 
But  in  1650  the  General  Assembly  adopted,  with 
many  variations,  the  version  of  Francis  Rous,  an 
English  Puritan,  M.P.  for  Truro,  ultimately  vSpeaker 
of  the  Barebones  Parliament,  and  Provost  of  Eton 
College.  In  no  other  country,  except  France,  have 
metrical  paraphrases  of  the  Psalms  exercised  a 
greater  influence  than  in  Scotland.  The  Lutherans 
and  the  Anglicans  had  their  hymns  ;  but  it  was 
many  j^ears  before  any  religious  music  was  sung 
by  Calvinist  or  Presbyterian  except  the  Psalms  of 
David . 

From  the  treasure-house  of  the  Psalter,  whether 
in  the  ancient  Latin  version,  or  in  vernacular  prose, 
or  in  rough  rhyme  wedded  to  simple  music,  Roman 
Catholics  and  Protestants  alike  drew  inspiration 
The  Psalms  clave  to  the  memories,  and  rooted  them- 
selves in  the  hearts  of  the  people.  But  the  appli- 
cation of  their  language  to  the  conduct  and  actions 
of  individuals  of  every  shade  of  religious  opinion, 
does  not  exhaust  the  value  of  the  Psalter.  There 
remains  its  collective  influence  when  employed  in 
common  worship.  Whatever  changes  were  made 
in  forms  of  services,  the  Psalms  retained  their  place. 

^  Longfellow,  "  Courtship  of  Miles  Standish,"  Canto  iii.,  1.  40. 


152    CATHOLICS  AGAINST  PROTESTANTS 

The  general  use  of  the  same  book  united  men  who, 
in  character  and  feehng,  time  and  place,  race  and 
language,  were  widely  separated.  It  is  to  this  aspect 
of  the  subject  that  Hooker  refers,  in  commenting 
upon  the  words,  "  We  took  sweet  counsel  together  ; 
and  walked  in  the  house  of  God  as  friends  "  (Ps.  Iv., 
verse  15).  If,  he  argues,  community  of  worship 
forges  the  chains  of  human  love,  then  assuredly 
true  religious  feeling  is  fostered  and  strengthened  in 
all  those  between  whom,  in  the  hearing  of  God  Him- 
self, and  in  the  presence  of  His  holy  angels,  are  inter- 
changed "  songs  of  comfort,  psalms  of  praise  and 
thanksgiving." 

Apart  from  the  extension  of  printing,  or  vernacular 
versions,  or  congregational  use,  there  were  circum- 
stances in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries 
which  specially  favoured  the  growth  of  the  influence 
of  the  Psalms.  The  proscribed  Protestant  Reformer, 
the  tortured  Roman  Catholic,  the  hunted  Huguenot 
or  Covenanter,  the  persecuted  Cevenol,  beheld  him- 
self in  David  fleeing  to  the  mountains  as  a  bird  to 
the  hills,  betrayed  by  his  own  familiar  friend,  or 
plunged  in  the  mire  and  clay  of  a  prison  from  which 
death  was  his  release.  In  the  strength  of  the 
Psalms,  martyrs  went  to  the  stake,  mounted  the 
scaffold,  or  endured  the  rack.  Men,  women,  and 
children,  dragged  to  gaol,  sang  psalms  along  the 
road,  and,  as  in  the  days  of  Paul  and  Silas,  dungeons 
resounded  with  earnest  praise  of  God,  clothed  in  the 
sublime  yet  familiar  language  of  the  Psalmist.  Or, 
again,  for  the  evil  was  ever  blended  with  the  good, 
it  was  with  the  words  of  the  Psalmist  that  fanatics 
denounced  their  foes,  cursed  them  with  the  awful 
imprecations  pronounced  on  the  divine  enemies, 
excused  their  own  barbarities,  and  appropriated 
to  themselves,  in  the  presumption  of  personal 
election,  the  promises  made,  and  the  mission  given, 
to  the  chosen  people  of  God.  It  w^as,  for  example, 
with  Psalm  cxlix.  that  Thomas  Miintzer  stirred  up 


SPAIN  AGAINST  ENGLAND  153 

the  German  peasants  to  revolt,  and  that  Caspar 
Schopp,  whose  Classicum  Belli  Sacri  is  written  in 
blood,  incited  the  Roman  Catholic  princes  to  em- 
bark in  the  war  that  for  thirty  years  convulsed 
Europe.  In  the  strugggle  between  Catholics  and 
Protestants  were  linked  the  destinies  of  nations,  the 
fates  of  dynasties,  the  fortunes  of  illustrious  states- 
men and  famous  captains.  When  men  of  obscure 
birth  and  humble  station  gave  up  their  lives  for 
conscience'  sake,  their  sacrifice  derives  pathos  and 
effectiveness  from  their  weakness  in  the  presence 
of  temporal  power.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  in 
dramatic  impressiveness  the  historical  grandeur  of 
such  a  spectacle  is  often  enhanced  by  the  fame  of 
the  actors,  the  importance  of  the  issue,  or  the 
magnificence  of  the  stage. 

The  long  struggle  between  Protestant  England 
and  Catholic  Spain  practically  opened  with  Monday, 
July  10,  1553.  On  that  day,  at  three  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon.  Lady  Jane  Dudley  was  brought  in 
state  from  Richmond  to  the  Tower.  In  the  midst 
of  a  "  shot  of  gunnes  and  chamburs,"  such  as  was 
rarely  heard  before,  she  landed  at  the  broad  stairs, 
a  great  company  of  nobles  and  gentry  with  her,  and 
her  mother,  the  Duchess  of  Suffolk,  bearing  her 
train.  The  same  evening,  between  six  and  seven 
o'clock,  from  the  "  Crosse  in  Chepe  "  to  "  Fletstreet," 
three  heralds  and  a  trumpeter  proclaimed  the  Lady 
Jane  Queen  of  England. 

But  the  friends  of  the  house  of  Grey  were  few, 
and  the  loyal  supporters  of  the  legitimate  heir  were 
many.  Even- at  Jane's  proclamation  "  few  or  none 
sayd  God  save  hare."  Nine  days  later,  for  she  was 
barely  even  a  "  twelfth-day  queen,"  her  father 
entered  her  room  at  the  Tower,  and  with  his  own 
hands  tore  down  the  canopy  under  which  she  sat. 
Her  brief  reign  was  over.  Suffolk  himself  had  that 
day  proclaimed  Mary  Queen  of  England  at  the  gates 
of  the   Tower.     Lady   Jane  received   with   simple 


154   CATHOLICS  AGAINST  PROTESTANTS 

pleasure  the  news  that  the  crown  was  no  longer 
hers,  only  asking,  in  the  innocence  of  her  heart,  if 
she  might  not  now  go  home.  Her  palace  had 
become  her  prison. 

Prisoner  though  she  was,  and  in  November 
formally  arraigned  for  treason  and  condemned  to 
death,  her  life  was  saved  for  a  time.  All  the  argu- 
ments of  Renard,  the  ambassador  of  Charles  v., 
failed  to  shake  Mary's  resolution  to  spare  her  fallen 
rival  and  cousin.  The  dangerous  insurrection  of 
Sir  Thomas  Wyatt,  in  which  the  Duke  of  Suffolk 
had  joined,  sealed  Jane's  fate.  On  Ash  Wednesday, 
February  7,  1554,  the  rebellion  was  quelled.  On 
Thursday,  while  the  Te  Deum  for  the  Queen's 
victory  was  sung  in  every  church,  and  the  bells 
rang  from  every  steeple  in  London,  Feckenham,  a 
gentle,  pious  old  man,  afterwards  the  last  Abbot  of 
Westminster,  was  sent  to  tell  Lady  Jane  that  she 
must  die  the  following  day,  and  to  prepare  her  for 
her  end  by  bringing  her,  if  possible,  to  the  Roman 
faith.  A  brief  reprieve  was  afterwards  granted,  in 
order  that  Feckenham  might  have  more  time  to 
effect  her  conversion.  On  Monday,  February  12, 
1554,  she  was  to  go  to  the  scaffold. 

Lady  Jane's  time  on  earth  was  too  short  for 
theological  discussion.  Out  of  courtesy  to  Fecken- 
ham, she  defended  her  Protestant  opinions.  But  her 
few  remaining  hours  were  chiefly  spent  in  writing  to 
her  father,  bidding  him  not  to  reproach  himself  for 
her  death,  and  exhorting  him  to  remain  firm  in  his 
religion.  To  "  Master  Harding,"  formerly  chaplain 
to  the  Duke  of  Suffolk,  "  but  now  fallen  from  the 
truth  of  God's  most  Holy  Word,"  she  wrote  an  ap- 
peal, couched  in  vehement  language  of  reproach  for 
his  apostasy.  She  urged  him  to  lay  to  heart  "  the 
saying  of  David,  in  his  hundred  and  fourth  Psalm 
(Ps.  civ.,  verses  29,  30),  where  he  said  thus  :  '  When 
thou  takest  away  thy  Spirit,  O  Lord,  from  men, 
they  die,  and  are  turned  again  to  their  dust  ;    but 


LADY  JANE  DUDLEY  155 

when  thou  lettest  thy  breath  go  forth,  they  shall 
be  made,  and  thou  shalt  renew  the  face  of  the  earth.' 
'  Viriliter  age,'  she  adds,  '  confortetur  cor  tuum, 
sustine  Dominum  '  (Ps.  xxvii.,  verse  16).  Fight 
manfully,  come  life,  come  death  :  the  quarrel  is 
God's,  and  undoubtedly  the  victory  is  ours."  To 
her  sister.  Lady  Katharine,  she  sent  her  New  Tes- 
tament, urging  her  to  "  desire  with  David  to 
understand  the  law  of  the  Lord  God." 

Her  husband  was  condemned  to  die  on  the  same 
day.  He  begged  for  a  last  interview  and  a  last 
embrace.  Jane  refused.  The  meeting  could  only 
increase  their  trial,  and  disturb  their  preparation 
for  death.  In  the  other  world  they  would  meet 
soon  enough.  Yet  she  saw  her  husband  twice. 
Her  place  of  imprisonment  was  in  "  Partrige's 
house,"  traditionally  the  Brick  Tower,  on  the  north- 
east side  of  the  fortress.  Lord  Guildford  Dudley 
was  taken  out  of  the  Tower,  "  about  ten  of  the 
clocke,  to  the  scaffolde  on  Tower  Hill."  The  pro- 
cession passed  under  her  window,  from  which  she 
thus  once  more  saw  him  alive.  She  saw  him  yet 
again.  His  body  was  thrown  into  a  cart,  the  head 
being  wrapped  in  a  cloth,  and  carried  back  to  "  the 
chappell  within  the  Tower,  wher  the  Lady  Jane 
dyd  see  his  dead  carcase  taken  out  of  the  cart,  as 
well  as  she  dyd  see  him  before  on  lyve  going  to  his 
deathe — a  sight  to  hir  no  lesse  than  death." 

But  the  sight  did  not  shake  her  own  firm  reso- 
lution. The  scaffold  on  which  she  was  to  die,  was 
prepared  "upon  the  grene  over  against  the  White 
Tower."  She  was  led  forth  from  the  prison  by  the 
Lieutenant  of  the  Tower,  Sir  John  Brydges,  wearing 
the  same  dress  in  which  she  had  been,  in  the  previous 
November,  conducted  on  foot,  the  axe  borne  before 
her,  to  be  arraigned  for  treason  at  the  Guildhall, 
In  her  hand  she  carried  a  book,  from  which  she 
prayed  until  she  came  to  the  foot  of  the  scaffold. 
Her  countenance  was  steadfast,  her  eyes  not  even 


156   CATHOLICS  AGAINST  PROTESTANTS 

"  moistened  with  teares,  although  her  ij  gentle- 
women, Mistress  Elizabeth  Tylney  and  Mistress 
Eleyn,  wonderfully;  wept."  At  the  foot  of  the 
scaffold,  she  dismissed  Feckenham  with  kindly 
words.  Mounting  the  steps,  she  spoke  to  the 
people,  acknowledging  that  her  acts  had  been  un- 
lawful ;  "  but  touching  the  procurement  and 
desyre  thereof  by  me  or  on  my  behalf e,  I  doo  '  wash 
my  handes  thereof  in  innocencie,'  before  God,  and 
the  face  of  you,  good  Christian  people,  this  day  ;  " 
and  therewith,  "  she  wrong  her  handes,  in  which 
she  had  hir  boke." 

Then,  kneeling  down,  she  turned  to  Feckenham, 
who  had  followed  her  to  the  scaffold,  saying,  "  Shall 
I  say  this  Psalm  ?  "  He  answered,  "  Yea."  So 
she  said  the  Miserere  (Ps.  li.)  in  English  to  the  end. 
The  psalm  ended,  she  stood  up,  and  gave  her  gloves 
and  handkerchief  to  her  maiden.  Mistress  Tylney, 
and  her  book  to  Master  Brydges,  brother  to  the 
Lieutenant  of  the  Tower.  The  book  is  the  small 
manual  of  prayers  on  vellum  which  is  preserved  in 
the  British  Museum. 

With  the  help  of  her  two  gentlewomen,  she  untied 
and  put  off  her  gown,  laid  aside  her  head-dress  and 
neckerchief,  and  took  from  them  "  a  fayre  hand- 
kercher  to  knytte  about  her  eyes.  Then  the  hang- 
man kneeled  downe,  and  asked  her  forgivenesse, 
whome  she  forgave  most  willingly.  Then  he  w^illed 
her  to  stand  upon  the  strawe  ;  which  doing,  she 
sawe  the  block.  Then  she  sayd,  '  I  pray  you  dis- 
patch me  quickly.'  Then  she  kneeled  downe,  saying, 
'  Will  you  take  it  off  before  I  lay  me  downe  ?  '  and 
the  hangman  answered  her,  '  No,  madame.'  She 
tied  the  kercher  about  her  eyes  :  then  feeling  for 
the  blocke,  saide,  *  What  shall  I  do  ?  Where  is  it  ?  ' 
One  of  the  standers-by  guyding  her  therunto,  she 
layde  her  heade  downe  upon  the  block,  and  stretched 
forth  her  body,  and  said,  *  Lorde,  into  thy  hands  I 
commende  my  spirite  1  '     And  so  she  ended." 


SPAIN  TRIUMPHANT  157 

In  the  short  time  between  her  sentence  and  her 
death,  Lady  Jane  Dudley  had  been  haunted  by  the 
fear  that  her  father  might  faU  from  the  Protestant 
faith.  Her  dread  proved  groundless.  The  Duke 
of  Suffolk  was  beheaded  at  Tower  Hill,  on 
February  23,  1554,  resisting  all  efforts  to  turn  him 
from  his  religion.  That  reparation,  at  least,  he 
could  make  to  the  daughter  whom  his  ambition 
had  destroyed.  His  own  remorse,  her  appeal,  her 
constancy,  and  her  example  gave  him  a  courage 
which  scarcely  belonged  to  the  weakness  of  his 
character.  He  died  with  the  same  psalms  upon 
his  lips,  "  Then  the  Duke,"  says  Fox,  "  kneeled 
down  upon  his  knees,  and  said  the  Psalm  '  Miserere 
mei,  Deus  '  unto  the  end,  holding  up  his  hands  and 
looking  up  to  heaven.  And  when  he  had  ended  the 
psalm,  he  said, '  In  manus  tuas,  Domine,  commendo 
spiritum  meum,'  "  etc.  His  head  fell  at  the  first 
blow  of  the  axe. 

The  execution  of  Lady  Jane  Dudley  established 
for  a  time  the  triumph  of  Spain,  and,  with  it,  the 
victory  of  authority  over  freedom.  So  long  as 
Queen  Mary  lived,  and  Philip  was  at  her  side,  no 
effort  should  be  spared  to  bring  back  England  to 
the  Roman  Catholic  faith.  At  her  death,  the  same 
policy  was  to  be  pursued  by  different  means,  but 
with  the  same  resolution.  Another  scene  brings 
before  us,  on  another  stage,  the  working  of  the 
same  policy,  directed  by  the  same  hand  and  will. 

Slow  in  the  execution  of  his  purpose,  but  in- 
flexibly tenacious  of  his  end,  Philip  set  himself  to 
crush  the  Netherlands  and  extirpate  the  pestilent 
heresj^  The  Duke  of  Alva  was  his  instrument.  In 
1567,  the  duke,  as  governor-general,  entered  on  his 
task,  at  the  head  of  a  Spanish  army.  The  Reign 
of  Terror  began.  Within  the  space  of  three  months, 
the  Council  of  Troubles,  better  known  as  the  Council 
of  Blood,  had  put  to  death  eighteen  hundred  human 
beings.     Among   its    later   victims   were    Lamoral, 


158   CATHOLICS  AGAINST  PROTESTANTS 

Count  of  Egmont  and  Prince  of  Gavre,  and  his 
friend,  Count  Horn. 

On  the  22nd  of  August  1567,  Egmont  rode  out 
from  Brussels  to  meet  the  governor-general.  Pass- 
ing his  arm  lovingly  round  his  neck,  Alva  talked 
with  him  in  friendly  fashion  as  he  was  escorted  to 
the  house  of  Madame  de  Jasse,  where  the  governor 
was  lodged.  In  spite  of  friendly  warnings,  again 
and  again  reiterated,  Egmont  believed  in  the  duke's 
honour.  His  confidence  inspired  Horn  with  a  sense 
of  the  same  security,  and  he  joined  Egmont  at 
Brussels  to  show  respect  to  the  king's  representative. 
On  September  9  the  blow  fell.  Egmont  and  Horn 
were  arrested,  and  under  a  strong  guard  conveyed 
to  Ghent.  They  scarcely  had  even  the  mockery  of 
a  trial.  On  June  2,  1568,  the  sentence  of  death 
was  passed  upon  the  two  nobles  by  the  Council  of 
Blood.  The  same  day,  the  prisoners,  in  separate 
carriages,  guarded  by  hundreds  of  soldiers,  w^re 
conveyed  to  the  Brod-huys  in  the  great  square  at 
Brussels. 

Late  on  the  evening  of  the  4th  of  June,  Alva  sent 
for  the  Bishop  of  Ypres,  and  charged  him  to  prepare 
the  prisoners  for  death  on  the  following  day.  The 
bishop  implored  for  mercy,  or  at  least  delay.  The 
only  answer  he  received  was  the  rebuke,  that  he  had 
been  summoned  to  confess  the  criminals,  not  to 
advise  the  governor.  The  rumour  of  the  sentence 
quickly  spread.  The  Countess  of  Egmont  heard  it, 
and  hurried  to  the  presence  of  the  duke.  On  her 
knees  she  begged  for  her  husband's  life.  "  On  the 
morrow,"  was  the  ironical  reply,  "  your  husband  is 
certain  to  be  released." 

It  was  not  till  eleven  o'clock  at  night,  that  the 
bishop  reached  the  chamber  on  the  second  storey 
of  the  Brod-huys,  where  Egmont  was  confined.  The 
count  heard  his  sentence  with  surprise  rather  than 
with  flinching.  "  Since,"  he  said,  "  my  death  is 
the  will  of  God  and  His  Majesty,  I  will  try  to  meet 


COUNT  EGMONT  159 

it  with  patience."  He  had  but  a  few  hours  to  hve. 
The  bishop  exhorted  him  to  withdraw  himself  from 
all  earthly  interests,  and  turn  his  thoughts  only  to 
God.  Kneeling  at  his  feet,  Egmont  confessed,  and 
received  the  Sacrament.  Then  nature  reasserted 
itself,  as  he  thought  on  his  wife  and  children. 
"  Alas  !  "  he  exclaimed,  "  how  weak  and  frail  is  our 
human  nature.  When  we  would  think  only  of  God, 
the  images  of  wife  and  children  come  between." 
His  loss  of  self-control  was  but  momentary.  Re- 
covering his  calmness,  he  sat  down  and  wrote  to  the 
king,  as  the  day  began  to  dawn  on  which  he  was  to 
die.  "  Although,"  he  wrote,  "  I  have  never  had  a 
thought,  and  believe  myself  never  to  have  done  a 
deed,  which  could  tend  to  the  prejudice  of  Your 
Majesty's  person  or  service,  or  to  the  detriment  of 
our  true,  ancient,  and  Catholic  religion,  nevertheless 
I  take  patience  to  bear  that  which  it  has  pleased 
the  good  God  to  send."  "  I  pray  Your  Majesty,"  he 
concluded,  "  to  forgive  me,  and  to  have  compassion 
on  my  poor  wife,  my  children,  and  my  servants, 
having  regard  to  my  past  services.  In  which  I  hope 
I  now  commend  myself  to  the  mercy  of  God. 

'^  Ready  to  die,  this  5th  June  1568.  Your 
Majesty's  very  humble  and  loyal  vassal  and  servant, 

"  Lamoral  D'Egmont." 

Then,  with  his  own  hands,  he  cut  the  collar  from 
his  doublet  and  his  shirt,  that  the  hangman  might 
not  defile  him  with  his  touch.  The  rest  of  the  twi- 
light hours  were  spent  in  prayer  and  meditation. 

The  scaffold  was  raised  in  the  centre  of  the  famous 
Grande  Place  of  Brussels,  the  scene  of  many  a 
brilliant  tournament  and  cruel  execution.  Opposite 
to  the  Brod-huys  stands  the  magnificent  Town 
Hall,  and  on  either  side  of  the  space  rise  the  pictur- 
esque mediaeval  guild-houses  of  the  butchers, 
brewers,  archers,  tailors,  and  carpenters.     On  the 


i6o     CATHOLICS  AGAINST  PROTESTANTS 

morning  of  the  5th  of  June  1568,  the  bells  tolled 
from  the  churches  ;  gloom  hung  over  the  city,  as 
though,  to  use  the  language  of  a  contemporary, 
"  the  day  of  judgment  were  at  hand."  The  roofs, 
the  balconies,  the  windows,  that  looked  upon  the 
square,  were  thronged  with  spectators.  Strong 
bodies  of  arquebusiers  guarded  the  avenues  that 
led  to  the  Place.  Three  thousand  Spanish  troops, 
some  of  whom  had  doubtless  followed  Egmont  in 
his  brilliant  feats  of  arms  at  St.  Quentin  and 
Gravelines,  were  massed  round  a  scaffold,  draped 
with  black  cloth.  In  its  folds  was  concealed  the 
executioner.  Upon  the  scaffold  itself  were  placed 
two  velvet  cushions,  and  a  small  table  bearing 
a  crucifix.  At  the  corners  rose  two  poles,  spiked 
with  steel  points.  Immediately  below  the  scaffold, 
motionless  on  his  horse,  sat  the  Provost  Marshal, 
holding  in  his  hand  his  red  wand  of  office. 

At  eleven  o'clock,  Egmont,  with  the  bishop  at 
his  side,  walked  with  steady  step  along  the  platform 
which  led  from  the  balcony  of  the  Brod-huys  to  the 
scaffold.  As  he  made  his  way  to  the  block,  he 
repeated  aloud  portions  of  the  51st  Psalm.  With 
one  vain  wish  that  he  had  been  allowed  to  die  in 
the  service  of  king  and  country,  he  knelt  down  on 
one  of  the  cushions  and  prayed  aloud.  Then,  after 
repeatedly  kissing  the  crucifix,  and  receiving  ab- 
solution at  the  hands  of  the  bishop,  he  rose  to  his 
feet.  Stripping  off  his  mantle  and  robe,  he  again 
knelt  down,  drew  a  silk  cap  over  his  e3'^es,  and, 
repeating  the  words,  "  Lord,  into  th}^  hands  I 
commend  my  spirit  "  (Ps.  xxxi.,  verse  6),  awaited 
the  stroke  of  the  executioner.  His  head,  which  was 
severed  from  the  body  at  a  single  blow,  was  set 
on  one  of  the  spikes,  and  a  cloak  thrown  over  the 
mutilated  trunk. 

A  few  minutes  later.  Count  Horn  was  led  to  the 
scaffold.  He  died  with  the  same  courage,  and  with 
the  same  words  on  his  lips.     On  the  pole  opposite 


RIVALRY  OF  TWO  WOMEN  i6i 

that  of  Egmont,  his  head  was  fixed.  With  these 
executions  began  the  revolt  of  the  Netherlands. 

In  England,  the  struggle  of  Protestantism  against 
Spain  and  Roman  Catholicism  centred  round  the 
rivalry  of  two  women.  On  the  death  of  Queen  Mary, 
Queen  Elizabeth,  relieved  from  constant  dread  of 
execution,  had  expressed  her  gratitude  in  the 
words  of  Ps.  cxviii.,  verse  23,  "  This  is  the  Lord's 
doing  ;  and  it  is  marvellous  in  our  eyes."  The 
Latin  text  was  the  stamp  of  her  gold,  as  another 
quotation  adapted  from  the  Psalms — Posui  Deum 
adjutoreni  meum  {"  Thou  art  my  helper  .  .  .  O 
my  God,"  Ps.  xl.,  verse  21),  was  the  stamp  of  her 
silver.  Her  love  of  the  Psalter  is  further  shown  by 
her  version  of  Ps.  xiv.,  beginning  : 

"  Fooles,  that  true  fayth  yet  never  had, 
Sayth  in  their  hartes,  there  is  no  God  ! 
Fylthy  they  are  in  their  practyse, 
Of  them  not  one  is  godly  wyse." 

But  though  she  ruled  as  few  have  ever  done  in  the 
hearts  of  her  people,  her  throne,  and  all  that  was 
implied  in  its  stability,  were  insecure  so  long  as 
Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  was  her  heir  and  the  pivot 
of  religious  and  political  intrigues.  On  the  character 
of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  historians  will  never  cease 
to  dispute,  and  her  share  in  the  murder  of  Darnley  is 
a  subject  on  which  they  are  still  divided. 

On  Saturday,  March  9,  1566,  Riccio,  Mary's 
Italian  secretary,  was  murdered,  almost  before  the 
Queen's  eyes,  in  the  Palace  of  Holyrood.  In  this 
brutal  crime,  Henry  Stuart,  Earl  of  Darnley,  had 
borne  a  part,  which  might  well  have  turned  to  hatred 
Mary's  love  for  the  handsome,  but  dissolute  husband 
on  whom  she  had  conferred  the  title  of  King.  Even 
the  birth  of  their  son,  three  months  later,  could 
scarcely  restore  an  affection  thus  outraged,  especially 
as,  Darnley  ostentatiously  absented  himself  from 
the  child's  baptism.  Nor  was  his  subsequent 
conduct,  sullen  and  wayward  as  it  was,  likely  to 


1 62    CATHOLICS  AGAINST  PROTESTANTS 

heal  the  breach.  Yet,  though  the  circumstances 
create  suspicion,  Mary's  connivance  at  Darnley's 
assassination  is  not  absolutely  proved.  His  in- 
solence and  caprice  had  made  him  many  enemies 
among  the  haughty  nobles  who  attended  the 
Scottish  Court. 

In  the  winter  of  1566-67,  Darnley  lay  sick  at 
Glasgow,  from  some  mysterious  and  apparently 
infectious  malady.  When  he  was  slowly  recovering, 
Mary  visited  him,  and  husband  and  wife  were 
outwardly  reconciled.  At  the  end  of  January  1567, 
though  still  suffering  from  the  disease,  he  was 
removed  in  a  litter  to  Edinburgh,  and  lodged,  not 
in  the  Palace  of  Holyrood,  but  in  a  house  which  stood 
on  a  space  of  ground  called  Kirk-o '-Field. 

The  Kirk-o '-Field,  situated  where  now  stands  the 
north-eastern  corner  of  the  old  University  buildings, 
lay  close  to  the  town-wall,  which  was  built  after 
the  battle  of  Flodden  to  protect  the  Cowgate. 
Through  this  wall,  on  the  south  side  of  the  open 
space,  led  a  postern  gate.  To  the  north  ran  a 
row  of  mean  cottages,  called  Thief  Row.  On  the 
east  stood  the  ruined,  roofless  Church  of  Our  Lady- 
in-the-Field,  wrecked  by  the  English  invaders.  On 
the  west  was  a  quadrangular  building,  also  partially 
in  ruins,  which  had  belonged  to  the  Dominican 
Friars.  It  was  in  the  western  wing  of  this  convent 
that  Darnley  was  lodged. 

The  rooms  in  this  wing  were  not  many  ;  but  they 
were  occupied  as  a  dwelling-house,  and  were  de- 
tached from  the  rest  of  the  building,  having  a 
separate  staircase  and  door  which  gave  access  from 
without.  The  wing  contained  a  hall,  and  a  bed- 
room on  the  ground  floor  ;  above  these  were  another 
bedroom,  a  wardrobe,  a  cabinet,  and  a  corridor. 
There  was  also  a  cellar  below  the  hall.  These 
rooms  had  been  prepared  for  Darnley's  reception, 
and  furnished  with  a  touch  of  regal  splendour. 
The  hall  was  hung  with  tapestry,  and  fitted  with 


DEATH  OF  DARNLEY  163 

a  chair  of  state,  and  a  dais  of  black  velvet  fringed 
with  silk.  Darnley's  bedchamber  on  the  first  floor 
was  hung  with  tapestry,  and  carpeted  with  the 
rare  and  costly  luxury  of  a  little  Turkey  carpet. 
A  chair  of  purple  velvet,  two  or  three  cushions  of 
red  velvet,  a  small  table  covered  with  a  green 
velvet  cover,  a  bed,  hung  with  brown  velvet, 
"  pasmented  with  cloth  of  silver  and  gold,"  and 
embroidered  with  cypress  and  flowers,  formed  the 
furniture.  The  bed  had  belonged  to  Mary's  mother. 
The  cabinet  was  of  "  yellow  shot  taffeta,  fringed 
with  red  and  yellow  silk."  The  wardrobe  was  hung 
with  tapestry,  figuring,  by  a  grim  irony,  a  rabbit 
hunt.  Never  was  wild  animal  more  helplessly 
trapped  and  at  the  mercy  of  his  pursuers  than  was 
Darnley  in  the  hands  of  his  enemies.  In  the 
bedroom  on  the  ground  floor,  immediately  beneath 
Darnley's  chamber,  was  a  bed  of  red  and  yellow 
damask,  with  a  coverlet  of  marten's  fur.  Here 
the  Queen  slept  on  Wednesday,  February  5,  and 
on  Friday,  February  7,  Here,  also,  she  was 
to  have  slept  the  following  Sunday. 

About  ten  o'clock,  on  the  night  of  Sunday,  the 
Queen  with  her  attendants  was  seen  passing  along 
the  Blackfriars  Wynd,  lighted  by  torch-bearers, 
on  her  way  from  Holyrood  to  visit  Darnley  at 
Kirk-o'- Field.  Arri\  d  at  the  house,  she  went 
straight  to  her  husband's  room,  without  entering 
her  own  chamber.  There  she  sat  for  two  hours, 
talking  with  the  sick  man.  At  midnight  she  rose, 
placed  a  ring  on  Darnley's  finger,  kissed  him,  bade 
him  good-night,  and  left  him.  That  afternoon, 
Sebastian  Paiges,  one  of  the  Court  musicians, 
had  been  married  to  one  of  Mary's  waiting- 
women,  and  in  honour  of  the  event  there  was 
given  at  the  Palace  a  masked  ball,  which  Mary 
had  promised  to  attend.  At  the  door  of  the  King's 
chamber,  she  turned,  and  said  to  Darnley,  "  It  is 
eleven  months  to-day  since  Riccio  was  slain." 
12 


i64    CATHOLICS  AGAINST  PROTESTANTS 

Mary  departed,  returning  as  she  came,  by  the 
light  of  torches,  to  Holyrood.  On  her  way,  she  sent 
back  her  page  to  fetch  the  furred  coverlet  from  her 
room. 

Darnley,  still  a  mere  boy,  only  twenty  years  old, 
was  left  alone  with  his  page,  Taylor,  who  slept  in  his 
room,  and  two  servants,  Nelson  and  Symonds,  who 
slept  in  a  corridor  outside  his  chamber.  Two 
grooms  also  slept  somewhere  in  the  house.  When 
Mar}^  had  gone,  Darnley  turned  to  Nelson,  and 
said,  "  She  was  very  kind  ;  but  why  did  she  speak 
of  Davie's  slaughter  ?  "  Her  parting  words  sounded 
ominously  in  his  ears.  The  place  was  a  solitary 
one,  among  the  ruins  of  churches,  the  graves  of  dead 
men,  and  the  lurking  corners  of  thieves.  "  It  is 
very  lonely,"  he  said.  Restless  and  wakeful,  weak 
with  his  long  illness,  chilled  by  a  sense  of  his  loneli- 
ness and  a  vague  foreboding  of  evil,  he  opened  the 
Book  of  Psalms.  Perhaps  the  wayward  boy,  who, 
in  the  days  of  his  short-lived  power,  had  made  so 
many  enemies  by  his  imperious  insolence,  had 
learned  to  turn  to  them  for  comfort  as  he  lay  on 
his  bed  of  sickness.  He  opened  the  pages  at  the 
55th  Psalm,  which  was  one  of  the  portions  appro- 
priated in  the  English  Prayer-book  for  the  day 
that  was  dawning.  They  were  the  last  words  that 
he  read  on  earth.  With  what  force  must  their 
words  have  struck  into  his  heart,  if  he  suspected 
his  impending  doom,  and  his  wife's  complicity  in 
the  crime  ! — 

"  My  heart  is  disquieted  within  me  ;  and  the 
fear  of  death  is  fallen  upon  me. 

"  Fearfulness  and  trembling  are  come  upon  me  ; 
and  an  horrible  dread  hath  overwhelmed  me. 

"  And  I  said,  O  that  I  had  wings  like  a  dove  1 
for  then  would  I  flee  away,  and  be  at  rest. 

"  For  it  is  not  an  open  enemy  that  hath  done 
me  this  dishonour  ;  for  then  I  could  have 
borne  it. 


MARY,  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS  165 

"  But  it  was  even  thou,  my  companion,  my  guide, 
and  mine  own  familiar  friend. 

"  The  words  of  his  mouth  were  softer  than  butter, 
having  war  in  his  heart  ;  his  words  were  smoother 
than  oil,  and  yet  be  they  very  swords." 

An  hour  later  he  went  to  bed,  with  his  page  at  his 
side.  All  that  follows  is  shrouded  in  mystery.  At 
two  o'clock  on  Monday  morning,  a  terrific  explosion 
startled  the  sleeping  citizens  from  their  beds. 
Nelson,  alone  of  those  who  slept  in  the  house, 
escaped  alive.  The  bodies  of  Darnley  and  his  page 
were  found,  side  by  side,  many  yards  away,  with  no 
sign  of  fire  upon  them.  Near  the  King,  who  was 
in  his  nightgown,  lay  his  fur  pelisse  and  slippers. 
The  probability  is  that  he  and  his  page,  aroused  by 
the  noise  which  the  m.urderers  made  in  arranging 
the  powder,  escaped  from  the  house  into  the  garden, 
and  were  there  seized  and  strangled.  So  sudden 
and  widespread  was  the  alarm  created  by  the 
explosion,  that  the  murderers  had  no  time  to  place 
the  bodies  near  the  ruins,  but  fled  for  their  lives. 

Twenty  years  later,  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  was 
herself  executed  at  Fotheringay.  Even  her 
bitterest  enemies  could  not  deny  that  she  met  her 
fate  with  dignity.  At  daybreak,  on  the  morning 
of  February  8,  1587,  she  desired  Jane  Kennedy 
to  read  aloud  to  her  from  her  favourite  book.  The 
Lives  of  the  Saints.  After  dressing  with  unusual 
care,  she  retired  to  her  oratory.  There  she  re- 
mained till  the  appointed  hour,  when,  with  tranquil 
composure,  she  took  her  seat  upon  the  scaffold. 
The  commission  for  her  execution  was  read  by  the 
Clerk  to  the  Council,  to  which  she  briefly  replied, 
declaring  her  innocence.  Throughout  the  long 
harangue  of  Dr.  Fletcher,  the  Protestant  Dean  of 
Peterborough,  who  exhorted  her  to  abandon  her 
religion,  she  remained  silent,  absorbed  in  her  own 
thoughts  or  devotions.  It  was  only  by  the  inter- 
vention of  the  Earl  of   Shrewsbury  that  she  was 


1 66   CATHOLICS  AGAINST  PROTESTANTS 

relieved  from  the  divine's  ill-timed  pertinacity,  and 
allowed  to  pray  according  to  the  forms  of  her  own 
faith. 

Her  prayers  ended,  she  put  off  her  black  satin 
robe  and  long  white  veil  of  lawn,  and  appeared  in 
a  bodice  and  petticoat  of  crimson  velvet.  The 
executioner,  on  his  knees,  begged  her  forgiveness. 
"  I  forgive  all,"  she  replied.  Then,  with  a  hand- 
kerchief tied  over  her  eyes,  she  "  kneeled  downe 
upon  the  cushion  resolutely,  and,  without  any 
token  of  feare  of  deathe,  sayde  allowde  in  Lattin 
the  Psalme,  In  te  Domine,  confido  (Ps.  xi.,  "  In  the 
Lord  put  I  my  trust  ").  Then  groaping  for  the 
block,  shee  layde  downe  hir  heade."  Another 
authority  states  that  she  said  aloud  several  times, 
"  Into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit."  The 
Latin  lines,  which  she  is  supposed  to  have  written 
before  her  execution,  seem  to  be  based  on  the 
Psalms,  and  especially  on  Psalm  Ixxi.  : 

"  O  Domine  Deus,  speravi  in  te  : 
O  care  mi  Jesu,  nunc  libera  me  : 
In  dur4  catena,  in  misera  poend 
Desidero  te  ! 

Languendo,  gemendo,   et  genuflectcndo, 
Adoro,  imploro,   ut  liberes  me  !  " 

Meanwhile  Spain  was  preparing  the  expedition 
which  was  designed  to  crush  Protestant  England. 
The  Invincible  Armada  lay  off  Lisbon  ready  to  sail. 
One  hundred  and  thirty  galleons,  carrying  30,000 
men,  covered  the  broad  waters  of  the  Tagus.  No 
crusade  against  the  Saracens  had  ever  created 
greater  enthusiasm  than  did  this  Holy  War  against 
the  heretic,  this  final  effort  of  authority  against 
freedom.  Treasure  had  been  lavished  like  water  ; 
high  and  low  had  given  their  money,  according 
to  their  means.  For  three  years  prayers  had  been 
said  daily  for  success.  Each  noble  family  in  Spain 
sent  a  son  to  fight  for  Christ  and  Our  Lady.  The 
ships  were  named  after  apostles  and  saints  ;    the 


THE  SPANISH  ARMADA  167 

crews  were  to  abstain  from  vice  and  evil-speaking  ; 
at  sunrise  the  Buenos  Dias,  at  sunset  the  Ave 
Maria,  were  to  be  sung  on  board.  The  standard, 
which  flew  from  the  flag-ship,  as  the  San  Martin 
led  the  way  to  sea  in  May  1588,  unrolled  the  motto, 
"  Exsurge,  Deus,  et  vindica  causam  tuam  " — 
"  Awake,  and  stand  up  to  judge  my  quarrel  :  avenge 
thou  my  cause,  my  God,  and  my  Lord  "  (Ps.  xxxv., 
verse  23). 

In  the  space  of  a  few  weeks,  the  great  fleet  was 
scattered  and  destroyed.  Victor  Hugo,  in  his 
Legende  des  Siecles,  imagines  the  little  Infanta  of 
Spain  standing  by  a  fountain  in  the  gardens  of  the 
Escurial.  In  her  tiny  hand  the  child  holds  a  rose 
in  which  her  laughing  face  is  buried,  till  the  damask 
of  cheek  and  flower  can  scarcely  be  distinguished. 
Suddenly  an  evening  breeze  sweeps  the  petals  into 
the  basin  of  the  fountain,  and  dashes  the  smooth 
waters  into  miniature  waves,  on  which  the  scattered 
leaves  toss  like  disabled  hulks.  "  What  does  it 
mean  ?  "  asks  the  wondering,  half- frightened  child, 
in  whose  hand  only  the  bare  stalk  is  left.  "  Madame," 
replies  the  Duenna,  "  to  princes  belong  all  that  is  on 
earth,  save  only  the  wind." 

It  was  in  a  psalm  (Ps.  iii.,  "  Lord,  how  are 
they  increased  that  trouble  me  ")  that  the  English 
nation  expressed  their  fears  of  impending  invasion, 
as,  five  centuries  before,  they  had,  with  the  same 
words,  invoked  divine  aid  against  the  Norsemen. 
In  a  psalm  (Ps.  Ixxvi.,  "  In  Jewry  is  God  known  "), 
they  gave  voice  to  their  gratitude  ;  with  the  same 
words  the  citizens,  led  by  the  great  preacher, 
Robert  Bruce,  celebrated  the  triumph  at  the  Market 
Cross  of  Edinburgh  ;  and  from  a  third  Psalm  (Ps. 
cxlvii.,  verse  18,  "  He  bloweth  with  his  wind")  is 
taken  the  motto  which  was  engraved  upon  the 
coins  struck  to  commemorate  the  victory  :  AffJavit 
Deus. 

The  defeat  of  the  Invincible  Armada  saved  Eng- 


1 68   CATHOLICS  AGAINST  PROTESTANTS 

land  from  the  horrors  of  invasion  ;  but  it  did  not 
end  the  war.  The  victory  was  onl}^  an  episode  in 
that  rehgious  struggle  which  gave  to  Great  Britain 
the  sceptre  of  the  sea,  and  laid  the  foundations  of 
her  colonial  empire.  In  those  "  spacious  times," 
when  men  were  endowed  with  a  variety  of  gifts 
and  qualities,  any  one  of  which,  in  later  days, 
would  distinguish  its  possessor,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh 
and  Sir  Philip  Sidney  were  conspicuous  figures  as 
gallant  knights,  courtiers,  and  scholars.  On 
Raleigh,  in  the  midst  of  his  adventurous  career  by 
sea  and  land,  the  Psalms  had  laid  their  spell. 
From  Jerome's  cave  at  Bethlehem  to  Raleigh's 
dungeon  in  the  Tower  their  influence  passes  with- 
out breach  of  continuity,  although,  in  the  lapse  of 
twelve  centuries,  scarcely  any  aspect  of  human  life 
remained  unchanged — except  that  human  nature 
to  which  they  remain  eternally  true.  In  his 
History  of  the  World,  the  bold  explorer  and  learned 
student  writes  : 

"  For  his  internal  gifts  and  graces,  David  so  far 
exceeded  all  other  men,  and,  putting  his  human 
frailty  apart,  he  was  said  by  God  Himself  to  be  a 
man  according  to  His  own  heart.  The  Psalms 
which  he  wrote  instance  his  piety  and  excellent 
learning,  of  whom  Jerome  to  Paulina  :  '  David,' 
saith  he,  '  our  Simonides,  Pindarus,  and  Alcseus, 
Horatius,  Catullus,  and  Serenus,  playeth  Christ  on 
his  harp,  and  on  a  ten-stringed  lute  raiseth  Him  up 
rising  from  the  dead.  And  being  both  king  and 
prophet,  he  foretelleth  Christ  more  lightsomely  and 
lively  than  all  the  rest." 

Spenser's  version  of  the  Penitential  Psalms  has 
perished.  But  the  metrical  translation  of  the 
"  Psalmes  of  David,"  "  begun  by  that  noble  and 
learned  gentleman,  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  Knight,  and 
finished  by  The  Right  Plonourable  the  Countess  of 
Pembroke,"  has  been  preserved.  It  was  printed 
in  1823,  and  a  portion  was  edited  by  Ruskin  in  his 


THE  PSALMS  AMONG  MARINERS      169 

Bibliotheca  Pastorum  (1877).  The  fact  that  Sidney 
should  have  set  himself  the  task,  is  itself  significant  ; 
but  his  version  is  specially  noteworthy  in  its  mingled 
familiarity  and  dignity.  It  has  the  energy  of  the 
times,  the  fixed  effort  to  reach  the  heart  of  the 
meaning  and  make  it  unmistakably  clear.  As 
Ruskin  says,  "  Sir  Philip  Sidney  will  use  any 
cowboy's  or  tinker's  words,  if  only  they  help  him 
to  say  precisely  in  English  what  David  said  in 
Hebrew  ;  impressed  the  while  himself  so  vividly 
by  the  majesty  of  the  thought  itself,  that  no  tinker's 
language  can  lower  it  or  vulgarise  it  in  his  mind." 

Nor  was  it  only  to  courtiers  and  learned  scholars 
that  the  Psalms  appealed.  To  them,  also,  even 
simple  mariners  turned  for  strength  in  peril  from 
enemies  or  shipwreck. 

In  1586,  five  Turkey  merchantmen,  equipped 
for  trade  and  not  for  war,  encountered  on  the  high 
seas  eleven  Spanish  galleys  and  two  frigates.  The 
English  ships  were  summoned  by  the  vSpaniards  to 
surrender.  On  their  refusal,  a  fight  began,  which 
is  thus  described  by  Philip  Jones.  "  Although," 
he  says,  "  our  men  performed  their  parts  with 
singular  valure  according  to  their  strength,  inso- 
much that  the  enemie  as  amased  therewith  would 
oftentimes  pause  and  stay,  and  consult  what  was 
best  to  be  done,  yet  they  ceased  not  in  the  midst 
of  their  businesse  to  make  prayer  to  Almighty  God, 
the  revenger  of  al  evils,  and  the  giver  of  victories, 
that  it  would  please  him  to  assist  in  that  good 
quarell  of  theirs,  in  defending  themselves  against  so 
proud  a  tyrant,  to  teache  their  hands  to  warre  and 
their  fingers  to  fight  (Ps.  cxliv.,  verse  i),  that  the 
glory  of  the  victory  might  redound  to  his  Name, 
and  to  the  honor  of  true  Religion,  which  the  insolent 
enemie  sought  so  much  to  overthrowe."  At  the 
end  of  four  hours,  the  Spaniards  drew  off,  and  the 
English  merchantmen  pursued  their  voyage  un- 
molested. 


I70    CATHOLICS  AGAINST  PROTESTANTS 

On  the  i6th  day  of  August  1593,  "  the  Tobie  of 
London,  a  ship  of  250  tunnes,  manned  with  fiftie 
men,  set  sayle  from  Blackwall."  She  was  cast 
ashore  on  the  Barbary  coast,  and  broke  up  so  fast 
that  there  was  no  time  to  make  a  raft.  CHmbing 
up  into  the  shrouds,  the  crew  hung  there  for  a  time. 
"  But  seeing  nothing  but  present  death  approch,  we 
committed  our  selves  unto  the  Lord,  and  beganne 
with  doleful  tune  and  heavy  hearts  to  sing  the  12 
Psalme  :  *  Helpe,  Lord,  for  good  and  godly  men,* 
&c.  Howbeit,  before  we  had  finished  foure  verses, 
the  waves  of  the  sea  had  stopped  the  breathes  of 
most  of  our  men  .  .  .  and  only  twelve,  by  God's 
providence,  partly  by  swimming  and  other  meanes 
of  chests,  gote  on  shoare,  which  was  about  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  from  the  wracke  of  the  ship." 

Yet  another  incident  connects  the  Psalms  with  the 
progress  of  the  same  war.  In  1598  the  question  of 
peace  with  Spain  was  hotly  debated  in  Elizabeth's 
Council.  The  Earl  of  Essex,  supported  by  the 
envoys  from  the  States-General  of  Holland,  warmly 
urged  the  continuance  of  the  war.  Burghley  as 
strongly  pleaded  for  peace.  In  the  midst  of  the 
debate,  he  drew  from  his  pocket  a  Prayer  Book, 
and  read  to  Essex  the  verse,  "  The  bloodthirsty  and 
deceitful  men  shall  not  live  out  half  their  days  " 
(Ps.  Iv.,  verse  25).  Three  years  later,  on  Wednesday, 
February  25,  1601,  Essex  was  led  to  the  high 
court  above  Csesar's  Tower,  in  the  precincts  of  the 
Tower  of  London,  and  there  beheaded. 

Like  the  queen  herself,  and  like  her  first  arch- 
bishop, her  greatest  statesman  was  a  lover  of  the 
Psalter.  All  his  life  Burghley  had  been  a  diligent 
student  of  the  Psalms.  In  his  declining  days,  as 
a  friend  and  contemporary  writes  of  the  great 
minister,  "  there  was  no  earthly  thing  wherein  he 
took  comfort  but  in  .  .  .  reading,  or  hearing  the 
Scriptures,  Psalmes,  and  Praieres."  His  will, 
dated  October  20,  1579,  disposes  of  his  lands  and 


BACON'S  PSALMS  171 

goods  in  a  manner  that  he  hopes  "  shall  not  offend 
God,  the  giver  of  them  all  to  me  ;  considering,  as 
it  is  in  the  Psalm,  '  Coelum  coeli  Domino,  terram 
dedit  fihis  hominum  '  "  (Ps.  cxv.,  verse  16,  "  All 
the  whole  heavens  are  the  Lord's  ;  the  earth  hath 
he  given  to  the  children  of  men  "). 

The  genius  of  Bacon  is  one  of  the  glories  of  the 
Elizabethan  age.  He  also  studied  and  quoted  the 
Psalms.  In  his  essay  "  On  Atheism,"  he  com- 
ments on  the  I  St  verse  of  Ps.  xiv.,  that  the  fool 
who  said  in  his  heart,  "  there  is  no  God,"  "  saith  it 
rather  by  rote  to  himself,  as  that  he  would  have 
then  that  he  can  thoroughly  believe  it  or  be  per- 
suaded of  it."  Another  verse  quoted  in  Bacon's 
Essays  ("  Nature  in  Men  ")  is  Ps.  cxx.,  verse  5, 
"  My  soul  hath  long  dwelt  among  them  that  are 
enemies  unto  peace."  Like  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt, 
Surrey,  Spenser,  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  Queen  Elizabeth, 
James  i.,  and  Phinehas  Fletcher,  Bacon  was  himself 
a  versifier  of  the  Psalms.  His  Certaine  Psalmes 
written  in  sickness,  published  in  1624,  and  dedicated 
to  George  Herbert,  are  so  unmelodious,  that  it  is 
difficult  to  imagine  that  he  could  ever  have  been 
a  poet.  It  was  on  a  psalm  (Ps.  ci.),  known  as  the 
"  Mirror  for  Magistrates,"  that  he  founded  his 
advice  to  George  Villiers,  Duke  of  Buckingham. 
He  bade  him  take  that  psalm  for  his  guide  in  pro- 
moting courtiers.  "  In  these  the  choice  had  need 
be  of  honest  faithful  servants,  as  well  as  of  comely 
outsides  who  can  bow  the  knee  and  kiss  the  hand. 
.  .  .  King  David  (Ps.  ci.,  verses  6,  7)  propounded 
a  rule  to  himself  for  the  choice  of  his  courtiers. 
He  was  a  wise  and  good  king,  and  a  wise  and  good 
king  shall  do  well  to  follow  such  a  good  example  ; 
and  if  he  find  any  to  be  faulty,  which  perhaps 
cannot  suddenly  be  discovered,  let  him  take  on  him 
this  resolution  as  King  David  did,  '  There  shall 
no  deceitful  person  dwell  in  my  house  '  "  (Ps.  ci., 
verse  10). 


172    CATHOLICS  AGAINST  PROTESTANTS 

In  stormy  scenes  of  violence  or  peril,  in  dramatic 
incidents  on  which  great  events  have  turned,  in 
episodes  in  the  Uves  of  rulers  of  the  earth,  the  power 
of  the  Psalms  has  been  noted  by  historians.  On 
masterpieces  of  Elizabethan  literature  the  same 
power  may  be  traced.  Whether  Shakespeare,  for 
example,  was  indeed  "untutored  in  the  lore  of  Greece 
and  Rome,"  may  be  open  to  dispute  ;  but  none 
can  doubt  his  familiarity  with  the  Psalms.  "  Death, 
as  the  Psalmist  saith,  is  certain  to  all  :  all  shall  die." 
So  says  Justice  Shallow  to  Silence,  alluding  to  Psalm 
jxxxix.  47,  "  What  man  is  he  that  liveth  and  shall 
not  see  death  ?  "  When  Queen  Margaret  asks,  in 
the  Second  Part  of  Henry  the  Sixth, 

"  What  !     Art  thou,  like  the  adder,  waxen  deaf  ? 
Be  poisonous  too,  and  kill  their  forlorn  Queen  "  ; 

or  when  Hector  tells  Paris,  in  Troilus  and  Cressida, 

"  Pleasure  and  revenge 
Have  ears  more  deaf  than  adders  to  the  voice 
Of  any  true  decision," 

the  allusion  is  to  Psalm  Iviii.  4. 

Buckingham's  words  in  King  Henry  the  Eighth 
refer  to  Psalm  cxli.  2,  "  Let  the  lifting  up  of  my 
hands  be  an  evening  sacrifice  "  : 

'  And,  as  the  long  divorce  of  steel  falls  on  me. 
Make  of  your  prayers  one  sweet  sacrifice. 
And  lift  my  soul  to  Heaven." 

Antony's  prayer  in  Antony  and  Cleopatra — 

"  Oh,  that  I  were 
Upon  the  hill  of  Basan,  to  outroar 
The  horned  herd  !   for  I  have  savage  cause  " — 

plainly  refers  to  the  Psalmist's  "  hill  of  Basan  " 
(Ps.  Ixviii.  15)  and  the  "  fat  bulls  of  Basan  " 
(Ps.  xxii.  12).  The  prayer  of  Adam  in  As  Yoit 
Like  It — 

"  He  that  doth  the  ravens  feed. 
Yea,  providently  caters  for  the  sparrow. 
Be  comfort  to  my  age!  " — 


PSALMS  IN  SHAKESPEARE  173 

is  partly  founded  on  Psalm  cxlvii.  9,  "  He  feedeth 
the  young  ravens  that  call  upon  Him."  In  King 
Henry  the  Fifth,  where  the  king  sings  his  "  Non 
nobis,  Domine  !  "  in  thanksgiving  for  his  victory 
at  Agincourt, — 

"  O  God,  Thy  arm  was  here  ; 
And  not  to  us,  but  to  Thy  arm  alone 
Ascribe  we  all," — 

he  only  paraphrases  the  "  Not  unto  us,  O  Lord,  not 
unto  us,  but  unto  thy  Name,  give  the  praise,"  of 
Psalm  cxv.  i.  So  the  description  of  God,  in 
Richard  11.,  as  the  "  widow's  champion  and  defence" 
is  taken  from  the  Psalmist's  "  Father  of  the  father- 
less, and  defendeth  the  cause  of  the  widow  "  (Ps. 
Ixviii.  5).     When  the  king  in  Hamlet  asks, 

"  What  if  this  cursed  hand 
Were  thicker  than  itself  with  brother's  blood. 
Is  there  not  rain  enough  in  the  sweet  heavens 
To  wash  it  white  as  snow  ?  " 

he  refers  to  Psalm  li.  7,  "  Thou  shalt  wash  me,  and  I 
shall  be  whiter  than  snow."  The  description  of  the 
approach  of  Alcibiades  in  Timon  of  Athens — 

"  Who,  like  a  boar  too  savage,  doth  root  up 
His  country's  peace  " — 

suggests  Psalm  Ixxx.  13,  "  The  wild  boar  out  of 
the  wood  doth  root  it  up."  The  address  of  Romeo 
to  Juliet,  where  he  compares  her  to  "  a  winged 
messenger  of  Heaven," — 

"  When  he  bestrides  the  lazy-pacing  clouds 
And  sails  upon  the  bosom  of  the  air," — 

recalls  such  sentences  in  the  Psalms  as  "  Magnify 
him  that  rideth  upon  the  heavens,  as  it  were  upon 
an  horse  "  (Ps.  Ixviii.  4),  or,  "  Who  maketh  the 
clouds  his  chariot,  and  walketh  upon  the  wings  of 
the  wind  "  (Ps.  civ.  3),  or,  "  He  came  flying  upon 
the  wings  of  the  wind  "  (Ps.  xviii.  10). 


174    CATHOLICS  AGAINST  PROTESTANTS 

"  Sec  how  the  morning  opes  her  golden  gates, 
And  takes  her  farewell  of  the  glorious  sun  ! 
How  well  resembles  it  the  pride  of  youth, 
Trimmed  like  a  younker,  prancing  to  his  love," 

is  a  reminiscence  of  Psalm  xix.,  verse  5,  where  the 
sun  rejoices  "as  a  giant  to  run  his  course."  Finally, 
in  the  speech  from  the  Second  Part  of  King  Henry 
the  Sixth,  addressed  b}^  the  king  to  Humphrey, 
Duke  of  Gloster, — 

"  Stay,  Humphrey,  Duke  of  Gloster  ;    ere  thou  go 
Give  up  thy  staff  ;    Henry  will  to  himself 
Protector  be  :    and  God  shall  be  my  hope, 
My  stay,  my  guide,  and  lantern  to  my  feet  ; 
And  go  in  peace,  Humphrey," — 

Shakespeare  makes  use  of  such  passages  as,  "  truly 
my  hope  is  even  in  thee  "  (Ps.  xxxix.  8)  ;  "  but  the 
Lord  was  my  upholder  "  (Ps.  xviii.  18);  "  our  guide 
unto  death  "  (Ps.  xlviii.  13)  ;  and,  "  a  lantern  unto 
my  feet,  and  a  light  unto  my  paths  "  (Ps.  cxix.  105). 
Ingenuit}^  has  puzzled  itself  to  explain  Shake- 
speare's meaning,  when  Mrs.  Quickly  says  that  the 
dying  Falstaff  "  babbled  of  green  fields."  It  has 
been  suggested  that  Falstaff  was  repeating  to  him- 
self Psalm  xxiii.,  and  that  the  watcher  by  his  bed 
caught  only  the  words,  "He  shall  feed  me  in  a  green 
pasture."  The  suggestion  of  the  commentator  is  a 
curiosity  of  literature.  But  it  is  only  natural  that 
on  the  quieter  influence  of  the  Psalms  over  daily 
conduct,  or  by  peaceful  death-beds,  history  should 
be  comparatively  silent.  Yet  three  instances  may 
be  quoted  to  illustrate  this  aspect  of  the  subject. 
In  his  dying  moments,  the  thoughts  of  Richard 
Hooker,  the  pride  of  English  theologians,  dwelt 
on  Psalm  cxxx.,  the  De  Profundis,  on  which  Luther 
has  founded  one  of  his  best  known  hymns,  and 
Phinehas  Fletcher  has  meditated  in  the  lines  : 

"  As  a  watchman  waits  for  day, 

And  looks  for  light  and  looks  again, 

When  the  night  grows  old  and  grey. 
To  be  relieved  he  calls  amain  ; 

So  look,  so  wait,  so  long  my  eyes 
To  see  my  Lord,  my  Sun  arise." 


HOOKER,  JEWEL,  HERBERT  175 

Hooker's  Ecclesiastical  Polity  by  its  massive 
dignity  still  retains  its  place  in  theological  literature. 
But  Bishop  Jewel's  Apology  for  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land (1562),  as  a  vindication  of  the  doctrine  and 
discipline  of  the  Reformed  Church,  was  in  its  day 
equally  famous,  and  circulated  throughout  Europe 
when  the  Council  of  Trent  was  still  sitting.  Jewel 
himself  died  a  peaceful  death,  at  Monkton  Farleigh 
in  Wiltshire,  on  September  23,  1571.  On  his 
death-bed,  he  desired  that  the  71st  Psalm  might  be 
sung.  At  the  words,  "  Thou,  O  Lord,  art  my  hope, 
even  from  my  youth,"  he  cried  out,  "  Thou 
O  Lord,  hast  been  my  only  hope."  When  they 
reached  the  passage,  "  Cast  me  not  away  in  the  time 
of  age,"  etc.,  he  exclaimed  :  "  Every  one  who  is 
dying  is,  in  truth,  old  and  grey-headed,  and  failing 
in  strength."  The  Psalm  ended,  he  broke  forth 
into  frequent  ejaculations  :  "  Lord,  now  lettest 
Thou  Thy  servant  depart  in  peace  " — "  Lord, 
suffer  Thy  servant  to  come  to  Thee  " — "  Lord, 
receive  my  spirit  " — and  so  died. 

Great  though  Hooker  and  Jewel  were  as  theo- 
logians and  apologists,  George  Herbert  (i  593-1 632) 
was,  in  temperament  and  character,  more  typical 
of  the  Elizabethan  age  in  which  he  was  born.  A 
man  of  saintly  piety,  at  once  an  ascetic  and  a 
mystic,  he  had  also  the  courtly  grace  and  refined 
instincts  of  the  high-bred  gentleman.  Men  of  his 
type,  who  both  venerated  the  Church  of  the  Fathers 
and  inherited  the  culture  of  the  Renaissance,  were 
unintelligible  to  the  Puritans. 

Retiring  from  Court,  and  taking  holy  orders, 
Herbert  spent  his  closing  years  as  a  parish  priest 
among  the  green  meadows  of  Bemerton,  in  view 
of  the  tapering  spire  of  Salisbury  Cathedral.  It 
was  in  something  of  the  Psalmist's  spirit  that  he 
poured  out  his  soul  in  verse,  adorning  his  poetry 
with  the  quaint  conceits  and  fancies  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan age.    To  him,  as  has  been  already  mentioned, 


176    CATHOLICS  AGAINST  PROTESTANTS 

Bacon  dedicated  his  Certaine  Psalms.  His  hymn, 
"  The  God  of  Love  my  Shepherd  is,"  is  one  of  the 
most  popular  versions  of  Psalm  xxiii.  The  motto 
of  his  Sacred  Poems  and  Private  Ejaculations,  pub- 
lished at  Cambridge  in  1633,  is,  "  In  his  temple 
doth  every  man  speak  of  his  honour  "  (Ps.  xxix., 
verse  8),  and  the  same  verse  suggested  for  his  book 
the  title  of  The  Temple.  "  Thou  shalt  answer  for 
me,  O  Lord  ni}^  God  "  (Ps,  xxxviii.,  verse  15),  is  the 
burden  of  his  admirable  poem,  "  The  Quip."  The 
poet,  flouted  by  all  that  this  world  holds  dear — 
Beauty,  Money,  brave  Glory,  quick  Wit  and  Con- 
versation— takes  refuge  in  the  comfort  ministered 
by  the  words  of  the  Psalm  : 

"  Yet  when  the  houre  of  Thj'  design 

To  answer  these  fine  things  shall  come, 
Speak  not  at  large  ;    say,   I  am  Thine, 
And  then  they  have  their  answer  home." 

In  1632,  he  died  at  Bemerton,  dwelling,  like 
Jewel,  with  his  latest  breath,  on  the  text,  "  Forsake 
me  not  when  my  strength  faileth  "  (Ps.  Ixxi.,  verse 
8),  and  committing  his  soul  to  God  in  the  familiar 
words,  "  Into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit  " 
(Ps.  xxxi.,  verse  6). 

Instances  of  the  influence  of  the  Psalter  on 
uneventful  lives,  or  on  everyday  actions,  are, 
perhaps,  uninteresting  to  note.  But  the  point  needs 
no  labouring.  The  power  of  the  Psalms  has  been 
instinctively  felt  in  the  conduct  of  countless  men  and 
women  whose  careers  were  obscure,  unpicturesque, 
unknown.  It  is  here,  though  unrecorded,  that  their 
teaching,  their  encouragement,  their  warning,  their 
consolation  have  been  most  widely  felt.  Here  their 
sway  has  been  so  general  as  to  be  almost  universal  ; 
here,  also,  it  has  been  so  enduring  as  to  be  practic- 
ally everlasting.  From  age  to  age,  from  hand  to 
hand,  across  the  centuries,  has  passed  their  torch 
of  truth,  the  flame  burning  bright  and  steady,  ever 
pointing  the  way  through  the  darkness,  ever  ex- 


RICHARD  HOOKER  177 

ploring  the  mysteries  of  the  Divine  deaUngs  with 
mankind,  always  Ughting  up  the  recesses  of  the 
human  heart.  It  was  the  sense  of  this  continuous 
influence  of  the  Psalms  that  roused  Richard  Hooker 
from  his  absorbing  studies  to  a  noble  outburst  of 
feeling.  Yet,  here  again,  not  only  by  his  eloquence 
but  by  its  source,  the  universality  of  the  Psalms, 
and  their  superiority  to  religious  differences,  are 
strikingly  illustrated.  Hooker's  words  are  little 
more  than  a  paraphrase  from  the  exposition  of 
Torquemada,  the  Dominican  Inquisitor.  The  pas- 
sage is  familiar  enough  :  "  What  is  there  necessary 
for  man  to  know,  which  the  Psalms  are  not  able 
to  teach  ?  They  are  to  beginners  an  easy  and 
familiar  introduction  :  a  mighty  augmentation 
of  all  virtue  and  knowledge  in  such  as  are  entered 
before,  a  strong  confirmation  to  the  most  perfect 
amongst  others.  Heroical  magnanimity,  exquisite 
justice,  grave  moderation,  exact  wisdom,  repentance 
unfeigned,  unwearied  patience,  the  mysteries  of 
God,  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  the  terrors  of  wrath, 
the  comforts  of  grace,  the  works  of  Providence  over 
this  world,  and  the  promised  joys  of  that  world 
which  is  to  come,  all  good  necessarily  to  be  either 
known  or  done  or  had,  this  one  celestial  fountain 
yieldeth.  Let  there  be  any  grief  or  disease  incident 
into  the  soul  of  man,  any  wound  or  sickness  named, 
for  which  there  is  not  in  this  treasure-house  a 
present  comfortable  remedy  at  all  times  ready  to 
be  found.  Hereof  it  is  that  we  covet  to  make  the 
Psalms  especially  familiar  unto  us  all .  This  is  the  very 
cause  why  we  iterate  the  Psalms  oftener  than  any 
other  part  of  Scripture  besides  ;  the  cause  where- 
fore we  inure  the  people  together  with  their  minister, 
and  not  the  minister  alone,  to  read  them  as  other 
parts  of  Scripture  he  doth." 


CHAPTER    VII 
The  Huguenots,  1524-98 

Marot's  Psalms  at  Court  ;  the  distinctive  heritage  of  the  Huguenots  ; 
the  power  of  the  Psalms  in  the  pubHc  and  private  Uves  of  the 
Huguenots — PaUssy  the  potter,  Calvin,  Theodore  de  Beza, 
Robert  Estienne,  Casaubon,  Jean  Rousseau  ;  traces  in  modem 
France  of  the  struggle  between  Roman  Catholics  and  Hugue- 
nots ;  beginning  of  the  persecution  of  Protestants  —  Jean 
Leclerc  (1524),  Wolfgang  Schuch  (1525)  ;  indecision  of  Francis  i.  ; 
the  Huguenot  martyrs  of  Meaux,  Jean  Rabec,  massacre  of 
Vassy  ;  commencement  of  the  Wars  of  Religion  (1562)  ;  Coligny 
at  Noyers  and  Moncontour  ;  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew 
(1572)  ;  Henry  of  Navarre,  flight  from  Paris  to  Alen9on,  battles 
of  Courtras  and  Chateau  d'Arques  ;    Edict  of  Nantes  (1598). 

WHEN  Marot's  Psalms  first  appeared,  they 
were  sung  to  popular  airs  alike  by  Roman 
Catholics  and  Calvinists.  No  one  delighted  in  the 
sancies  chansonnettes  more  passionately  than  the 
Dauphin,  afterwards  Henry  ii.  He  sang  them  him- 
self, set  them  to  music,  and  surrounded  himself 
with  musicians  who  accompanied  his  voice  on  the 
viol  or  the  lute.  To  win  his  favour,  the  gentlemen 
of  the  Court  begged  him  to  choose  for  each  a  psalm. 
Courtiers  adopted  their  special  psalms,  just  as 
they  adopted  their  particular  arms,  mottoes,  or 
liveries.  Henry,  as  yet  without  an  heir,  sang  to  his 
own  music  Ps.  cxxviii.,  which  promises  to  the  God- 
fearing man  a  wife  "  as  the  fruitful  vine,"  and 
children  "  like  the  olive-branches."  Catherine  de 
Medicis,^  then  a  childless  wife,  is  said  to  have  taken 

1  Contemporary  writers  give  both  Psalm  vi.  and  Psalm  cxlii.  as 
the  favourite  psalm  of  Catherine.     In  favour  of  Psalm  vi.  is  Flori- 

178 


PSALMS  SUNG  TO  POPULAR  AIRS       179 

as  her  favourites  Ps.  vi.  ("  O  Lord,  rebuke  me  not 
in  thine  indignation  ")  and  Ps.  cxHi.  ("  I  cried 
unto  the  Lord  with  my  voice  ").  Anthony,  King 
of  Navarre,  chose  Ps.  xhii.  ("  Give  sentence  with 
me,  O  God  ").  Diane  de  Poitiers  sang  the  De 
Profundis  (Ps.  cxxx.)  to  the  air  "  Baisez-moi  done, 
beau  sire."  In  after  years,  when  Catherine  had 
borne  her  husband  ten  children,  Henry  carolled 
Ps.  xlii.  ("  Like  as  the  hart  desireth  the  water- 
brooks  ")  as  he  hunted  the  stag  in  the  Forest  of 
Fontainebleau,  riding  by  the  side  of  Diane,  for  the 
motto  of  whose  portrait  as  a  huntress  he  chose 
the  first  verse  of  his  favourite  psalm. 

Devout  Catholics  might  here  and  there  protest 
against  the  irreverent  use  of  the  Scripture  by 
setting  them  to  light  airs  and  singing  them  on 
frivolous  occasions.  Such  a  protest  was  in  fact 
made  by  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  the  boy  Arch- 
bishop of  Rheims,  whose  chosen  psalm  was  Psalm 
xxxi. — "  In  thee,  O  Lord,  I  have  put  my  trust." 
But  with  the  Huguenot,  love  of  the  Psalms  was  more 
than  a  passing  fashion  ;  they  became  in  a  peculiar 
sense  his  special  inheritance.  "When  the  Catholics," 
says  Florimond  de  Remond,  "  saw  simple  women 
seek  torments  in  order  to  manifest  their  faith,  and 
meet  death,  crying  only  on  Christ  their  Saviour, 
or  singing  a  psalm  ;  when  they  saw  young  virgins 
go  to  the  scaffold  as  gaily  as  they  would  go  to  the 
bridal  couch  ;  when  they  saw  the  men  rejoice  at 
the  sight  of  the  horrible  preparations  and  instru- 
ments   of   death,  and,   half   burned    and    roasted, 

mond  de  Remond,  the  author  of  the  Histoire  de  la  naissance  .  .  . 
de  I'heresie.  In  favour  of  Psalm  cxhi.  is  the  well-known  letter  of 
the  Sieur  de  Villemadon  (printed  by  Douen,  vol.  i.  148),  as  well  as 
the  special  appropriateness  of  the  psalm  itself  to  the  circumstances 
of  the  early  married  life  of  Catherine.  It  is  possible  that  Psalm  vi. 
was  her  favourite  among  the  first  thirty  psalms  which  Marot  trans- 
lated and  dedicated  to  Francis  i.,  and  that,  when  Psalm  cxlii.  was 
printed  in  the  Antwerp  Psalter  of  1541,  she  adopted  it  as  expressing 
the  desolation  of  her  loveless  home  in  a  foreign  land. 

13 


i8o  THE  HUGUENOTS,  1524-98 

contemplate  from  the  stake  their  impending  tor- 
tures, standing  firm  as  rocks  among  the  billows  of 
grief — in  a  word,  dying  with  a  smile — their  hearts 
wept  as  well  as  their  eyes." 

With  the  Psalms  is  bound  up  the  history  of 
French  Protestantism.  Their  translation  into  verse 
and  their  setting  to  music  were,  says  Strada,  among 
the  chief  causes  of  the  Reformation  in  the  Low 
Countries.  So  in  France  the  metrical  version  of 
the  Psalter,  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  set  to  popular 
music,  was  one  of  the  principal  instruments  in  the 
success  of  the  Reformed  Church.  The  Psalms 
were  identified  with  the  everyday  life  of  the  Hugue- 
nots. Children  were  taught  to  learn  them  by 
heart  ;  they  were  sung  at  every  meal  in  house- 
holds like  that  of  Coligny  ;  to  chant  psalms  meant, 
in  popular  language,  to  turn  Protestant.  On  the 
battlefield,  and  in  the  discipline  of  the  camp,  the 
Psalms  held  their  place.  A  psalm,  as  has  been 
already  mentioned,  was  the  war-cry  of  the  Britons 
at  Mold,  of  the  Knights  Templars,  of  Demetrius 
of  the  Don  ;  a  verse  from  the  Psalms  had  floated 
on  the  banner  of  the  Spanish  Armada  ;  the  battle- 
song  of  John  Sobieski  at  Choczin  in  1663,  when  the 
tide  of  Mohammedan  invasion  was  finally  checked, 
was  Ps.  cxv.  So  now,  in  the  French  Wars  of  Re- 
ligion, the  Psalms  became  the  Huguenot  Mar- 
seillaise. With  a  psalm  they  repelled  the  charge 
or  delivered  the  assault.  In  Conde's  army,  so  La 
Noue  has  recorded,  the  sentries  were  posted  and 
relieved  to  the  chant  of  psalms.  Ps.  iii.  ("  Lord, 
how  are  they  increased  that  trouble  me  ")  gave 
the  signal  of  danger.  Day  after  day,  the  hymn  of 
thanksgiving  for  victory  was  raised  in  Ps.  cxxii. 
("  I  was  glad  when  they  said  unto  me,"  etc.)  from 
the  walls  of  Huguenot  strongholds,  like  Montauban 
or  La  Rochelle,  as  the  soldiers  of  the  League  drew 
off  their  beaten  forces. 

Nor  was  it  only  in  the  shock  of  battle,  or  the 


MAROT'S  VERSION  i8i 

glow  of  victory,  that  the  power  of  the  Psalms  was 
exercised.  Other  songs,  from  the  days  of  Tyrtaeus 
to  those  of  Korner,  have  warmed  the  blood  and 
fired  enthusiasm.  But  the  Psalms  alone  have  been 
equally  powerful  in  defeat,  disaster,  or  humiliation. 
In  vain  was  the  chanting  of  the  Psalms  proscribed. 
Equally  in  vain  was  it  to  burn  the  books  by  the 
hands  of  executioners,  or  to  thrust  the  pages  into 
the  gaping  wounds  of  the  dying.  Colporteurs 
risked  their  lives  in  carrying  to  the  remotest  corners 
of  Protestant  France  copies  of  Marot's  version  of 
the  Psalms,  printed  so  small  that  they  could  be 
readily  concealed  in  the  clothes  of  refugees.  Thus 
it  was  that  the  Psalms  sustained  the  courage  of  the 
martyrs  in  the  midst  of  torture,  and  of  the  Forgats 
de  la  Foi  who  were  condemned  to  the  living  death 
of  the  galleys.  The  meetings  of  the  proscribed 
and  persecuted  Huguenots  were  summoned  by  the 
singing  of  a  psalm  ;  in  woods  and  caverns,  in 
dungeons,  in  exile  in  America,  the  Psalms  still 
sounded  from  the  lips  of  the  sturdy  Protestants. 
In  the  language  of  psalms  was  commemorated  the 
escape  of  those  who  fled  from  the  country  ;  and  an 
old  seal  is  in  existence,  once  the  property  of  a 
Huguenot  refugee,  which  bears  as  its  device  a  net 
below  ;  and  above,  a  bird  soaring  upwards  ;  and, 
as  its  motto,  the  words,  "  My  soul  is  escaped  even 
as  a  bird  out  of  the  snare  of  the  fowler  "  (Ps.  cxxiv., 
verse  6).  To  sing  the  Psalms  of  David,  men  left 
their  native  land,  and  sought  remote  recesses  of  the 
earth.  Francois  Leguat  and  six  companions  made 
their  home  on  the  Island  of  Rodrigues  in  the  Indian 
Ocean,  in  order  that  there,  without  hindrance,  they 
might  indulge  in  the  consolation  of  singing  praise  to 
God .  The  spectacle  of  these  seven  fugitives  gathered 
together  to  chant  the  Psalms  of  David,  in  an  other- 
wise uninhabited  island,  is  at  once  a  strange  scene  to 
conjure  up  with  the  imagination,  and  a  striking  com- 
mentary on  the  enduring  power  of  the  Hebrew  hymns . 


1 82  THE  HUGUENOTS,  1524-98 

Scarcely  less  impressive,  perhaps,  are  the  more 
peaceful  associations  which  made  the  Psalms  not 
only  the  banner  and  the  symbol,  but  also  the 
synonym  of  the  Reformed  Churches,  and  connect 
them  with  the  industries,  the  private  lives,  the 
learning,  or  the  arts  of  the  Huguenots. 

"  Palissy  ware,"  with  its  lustrous  glaze  and  life- 
like reproductions  of  natural  objects,  was  the 
invention  of  Bernard  Palissy,  the  Huguenot  potter, 
"  ouvrier  en  terre  et  inventeur  de  rustiques  figures." 
In  his  indomitable  efforts  to  solve  the  mystery  of 
enamel,  he  had  stripped  his  dwelling  bare  of  furni- 
ture, and  had  beggared  himself,  his  wife,  and  his 
children.  Worn  out  with  watching  his  furnace, 
shrunk  to  a  skeleton,  mocked  by  his  neighbours, 
bitterly  reproached  by  his  family,  he  found  con- 
solation in  the  Psalms.  As  he  wandered  through 
the  fields  round  Saintes,  observing  the  beauty  and 
variety  of  that  nature  which  he  learned  to  imitate 
with  such  marvellous  skill,  he  compared  the  in- 
finite power  and  wisdom  and  goodness  of  God 
with  his  own  petty  cares  and  trials.  "  I  have 
fallen  on  my  face,"  he  says,  "  and  adoring  God, 
cried  unto  Him  in  spirit,  '  What  is  man  that  thou 
art  mindful  of  him  ?  '  (Ps.  viii.,  verse  4)  ;  and  '  Not 
unto  us,  O  Lord,  not  unto  us,  but  to  thy  Name 
give  the  praise  '  "  (Ps.  cxv.,  verse  i). 

To  John  Calvin,  the  theologian  of  the  French 
Protestants,  belongs  the  honour  of  editing  the  first 
printed  edition  of  metrical  psalms  for  church 
worship.  Marot's  translation  of  Thirty  Psalms  had 
received  the  royal  licence  on  November  30,  1541. 
Three  years  before,  Calvin  had  become  the  pastor 
of  the  French  Protestant  Church  at  Strasburg. 
There,  in  1539,  he  had  caused  to  be  printed  one 
psalm  in  prose  (cxiii.),  and  seventeen  in  verse,  set 
to  music.  Of  these  metrical  translations,  twelve 
were  by  Marot  ;  the  remaining  five  were  by  Calvin 
himself,  in  whom  the  genius  of  philosophy  had  not 


CALVIN  AND  BEZA  183 

destroyed  the  natural  taste  for  poetry.  At  Geneva, 
it  was  one  of  Calvin's  first  acts  to  introduce  the 
chanting  of  psalms  into  the  public  worship  of  the 
Reformed  Church  (November  i  541).  In  his  preface 
to  the  Genevan  edition  of  Marot's  Fifty  Psalms,  to- 
gether with  a  liturgy  and  a  catechism,  June  10, 
1543,  he  says  that,  for  the  worship  of  God,  "  Nous 
ne  trouverons  meilleures  chansons  ne  plus  propres 
pour  ce  faire,  que  les  pseaumes  de  David,  lesquels 
le  sainct  Esprit  luy  a  dictez  et  faits." 

It  was  to  the  Psalms  that  he  himself  turned  in 
mental  troubles,  as  well  as  in  the  throes  of  pain  and 
death.  In  any  anxiety  of  mind,  he  repeated  the 
words  of  Psalm  vi.,  verse  3,  "  My  soul  is  sore 
troubled  :  but,  Lord,  how  long  wilt  thou  punish 
me  ?  "  In  the  agony  of  mortal  pain,  he  groaned 
out,  "  I  became  dumb,  and  opened  not  my  mouth  ; 
for  it  was  thy  doing  "  (Ps.  xxxix.,  verse  10).  It 
was  fully  enough,  for  him,  he  said,  to  know  that  it 
was  God's  hand.  Almost  his  last  words  were  a 
fragment  from  the  psalm,  "  How  long  wilt  thou 
forget  me,  O  Lord  ?  "  (Ps.  xiii.,  verse  i)  ;  but  even 
the  cry  of  weariness  rather  expressed  his  lament  for 
the  calamities  of  the  Huguenots  than  his  own  im- 
patience of  spirit. 

In  his  later  years,  Calvin's  colleague  at  Geneva 
was  Theodore  de  Beza  (15 19-1605),  the  writer  of 
the  metrical  version  of  Psalm  Ixviii.,  which  was  the 
battle-song  of  the  Huguenots.  Taste  for  the  culture 
of  the  Renaissance,  passion  for  poetry,  worldly 
success  and  fame,  had  weakened  the  impression  of 
the  religious  training  of  his  youth.  A  dangerous 
illness  revived  his  former  feelings.  Escaping  from 
the  bondage  of  Egypt,  as  he  called  his  previous  life, 
he  took  refuge  with  Calvin  at  Geneva.  In  1548, 
when  he,  for  the  first  time,  attended  the  service  of 
the  Reformed  Assembly,  the  congregation  was  sing- 
ing Psalm  xci.,  "  Whoso  dwelleth  under  the  defence 
of  the  most  High  :  shall  abide  under  the  shadow  of 


1 84  THE  HUGUENOTS,  1524-98 

the  Almighty."  He  never  forgot  the  effect  of  the 
words.  They  supported  him  in  all  the  difficulties 
of  his  subsequent  life  ;  they  conquered  his  fears, 
and  gave  him  courage  to  meet  every  danger.  To 
the  work  of  translating  the  Psalms  into  French 
verse,  and  into  Latin  prose  and  Latin  verse,  Beza 
devoted  the  best  years  of  his  life.  His  translation 
into  French  verse,  completing  that  of  Marot,  was 
pubhshed  at  Lyons  in  1562.  During  sleepless 
nights,  Beza  used  to  repeat  to  himself  the  morning 
hymn  of  Eastern  Christians,  the  favourite  psalm  of 
St.  Chrysostom,  "  O  God,  thou  art  my  God  ;  early 
will  I  seek  thee,"  etc.  (Ps.  Ixiii.).  When  this 
veteran  of  the  Reformation  died  (October  13,  1605) 
it  was  with  a  text  from  the  Psalms  upon  his  lips, 
"  If  thou.  Lord,  wilt  be  extreme  to  mark  what  is 
done  amiss  :  O  Lord, who  may  abide  it?  "  (Ps.cxxx., 
verse  3). 

By  a  text  from  the  Psalms,  Robert  Estienne,  the 
famous  printer,  was  sustained  throughout  his  long 
struggle  with  the  theologians  of  the  Sorbonne,  who 
proscribed  his  editions  of  the  Bible  in  the  vulgar 
tongue.  "  Whenever,"  he  said,  "  I  recall  to  mind 
the  war  that  I  have  waged  with  the  Sorbonne,  these 
twenty  years  and  more,  I  have  been  astonished  that 
so  small  and  frail  a  person  as  myself  could  have  had 
strength  to  continue  the  struggle.  Yet  every  time 
that  memory  reminds  me  of  my  deliverance,  that 
voice  which  in  Psalm  cxxvi.  celebrates  the  redemp- 
tion of  the  Church,  strikes  an  echo  in  my  heart  : 
*  When  the  Lord  turned  again  the  captivity  of  Sion  : 
then  were  we  like  unto  them  that  dream  '  "  (verse  i). 

On  August  20,  1608,  the  great  scholar,  Casaubon, 
was  going  with  his  wife  to  the  Huguenot  worship  at 
Charenton  in  an  open  boat  on  the  Seine,  singing 
psalms  as  they  went.  They  had  finished  Psalm  xci., 
and  had  reached  verse  7  of  Psalm  xcii.,  when  a  heavy 
barge  struck  the  stern  of  his  boat  and  threw  his  wife 
into  the  river.     Casaubon  saved  her,  after  almost 


SCHOLARS  AND  ARTISTS  185 

losing  his  own  life  in  the  effort.  But,  in  doing  so, 
he  dropped  into  the  river  his  Book  of  Psalms,  given 
to  him  by  his  wife  as  a  wedding-present,  and  for 
twenty-two  years  the  constant  companion  of  his 
travels.  They  reached  the  Temple,  and  were  present 
at  the  services.  When  the  chant  of  the  Psalms 
began,  Casaubon  put  his  hand  into  his  pocket  for 
his  book,  and  for  the  first  time  discovered  his  loss. 
He  did  not  recover  himself  till  the  congregation  had 
finished  more  than  half  the  86th  Psalm.  The  verse 
at  which  he  was  able  to  join  in  the  singing  was  the 
end  of  the  13th  :  "  And  thou  hast  delivered  my  soul 
from  the  nethermost  hell."  "  I  could  not  but 
remember,"  says  Casaubon  in  his  journal,  "  that 
place  of  Ambrose  where  he  says,  '  This  is  the 
peculiarity  of  the  Psalter,  that  every  one  can  use 
its  words  as  if  they  were  completely  and  individually 
his  own.'  " 

A  story  which  illustrates  his  love  of  the  Psalms, 
is  told  of  Jean  Rousseau,  the  Huguenot  painter 
(1630-93),  who,  for  his  religious  opinions,  was  shut 
out  from  the  Royal  Academy  of  painting,  and  died 
an  exile  in  London.  The  Duchess  of  Orleans,  who 
had  been  compelled  to  leave  her  home  in  the 
Palatinate,  to  abjure  the  Protestant  faith,  and  to 
marry  the  brother  of  Louis  xiv.,  wrote  to  her  sister  : 
"  You  must  not  think  that  I  never  sing  the  Psalms 
or  Lutheran  hymns.  I  sing  them  constantly,  and 
find  in  them  the  greatest  comfort.  I  must  tell  you 
what  happened  to  me  in  connection  with  them.  I 
did  not  know  that  M.  Rousseau,  who  has  painted 
the  Orangery  at  Versailles,  belonged  to  the  Reformed 
Religion  ;  he  was  at  work  on  a  scaffolding,  and  I, 
thinking  myself  alone  in  the  gallery,  began  to  sing 
the  1 6th  Psalm.  I  had  hardly  finished  the  first 
verse,  when  I  saw  some  one  come  hurriedly  down 
from  the  scaffolding  and  fall  at  my  feet.  It  was 
Rousseau.  I  thought  he  had  gone  mad.  *  Good 
God  !    Rousseau,'  said  I,  '  what  is  the  matter  ?  ' 


1 86  THE  HUGUENOTS,   1524-98 

'  Is  it  possible,  Madame,'  he  answered,  '  that  you 
still  remember  your  Psalms  and  sing  them  ?  May 
God  bless  you,  and  confirm  you  in  these  good 
feelings  !  '     His  eyes  were  full  of  tears." 

Upon  France  of  to-day  the  history  of  the  Re- 
formed Churches  has  left  its  lasting  mark.  Memories 
of  this  struggle  for  existence  linger  round  the  ruins 
of  castles,  churches,  and  towns.  They  are  preserved 
in  caves,  like  those  of  Lozere,  which  were  the  refuges 
and  the  storehouses  of  the  Huguenots.  New 
cathedrals,  like  those  of  Orleans  or  Uzes,  are  monu- 
ments of  the  religious  bigotry  which  destroyed  the 
older  edifices  ;  new  towns,  such  as  Privas,  record 
the  atrocities  of  a  religious  war  which  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  turn  cities  into  deserts.  Places,  like  the 
Place  du  Murier  at  Angouleme,  or  the  bridge  of 
Orthez,  are  traditionally  associated  with  deeds  of 
atrocity,  when  the  Huguenots,  goaded  to  despera- 
tion by  persecution  and  massacre,  turned,  with  the 
Psalms  on  their  lips,  to  destroy  their  oppressors. 
The  poetry  of  the  Huguenots,  partly  religious,  partly 
polemical,  partly  warlike,  is  still  sung  in  country 
districts,  where  it  enshrines  the  hopes  of  the 
Protestants,  long  since  dispelled,  as  in  the  stanza  : 

"  Nostre  Dieu  renversera 
Vous  et  vostre  loy  romaine, 
Et  du  tout  se  moquera 
De  vostre  entreprise  vaine. 

Han,  Han,  Papegots  ! 

Faitcs  place  aux  Huguenots." 

In  the  Angoumois,  to  this  da}^,  covered  utensils 
of  earthenware  are  called  Hiiguenotes,  because  they 
were  used  by  the  Protestants  to  cook  meat  on  jours 
maigres.  Inscriptions  over  the  doors  of  houses  still 
indicate  the  homes  of  the  Huguenots  ;  at  Xainton 
(Dept.  des  Deux  Sevres),  for  example,  is  the  motto 
irom  Psalm  cxxvii.,  verse  i  : 

"  On  a  beau  sa  maison  batir, 
Si  le  Seigneur  n'y  met  la  main, 
Cela  n'est  que  batir  en  vain." 


TRACES  IN  PROVINCIAL  FRANCE      187 

The  Rue  du  Renard,  no  uncommon  name  in 
street  nomenclature,  commemorates  the  times  when 
Protestants  hunted  Cathohc  priests  with  cries  of 
"  Renard."  "  Le  Rot  Hugon,"  with  whose  midnight 
depredations  children  are  frightened  at  Tours,  is 
wrongly  supposed  to  have  given  his  name  to  the 
Huguenots,  who  glided  through  the  city  in  the  shelter 
of  the  darkness  to  attend  their  places  of  worship. 
In  Bas-Poitou  wolves  were  popularly  called  Soubises, 
in  memory  of  the  terrible  leader  of  the  Protestants  ; 
and  many  of  the  Druidic  stones,  which  are  scattered 
over  the  country,  are  indifferently  known  as  Pierres 
du  Diable  and  Pierres  de  Soubise.  Even  the  nick- 
names of  the  Huguenots  suggest  the  desperate 
character  of  the  strife.  Soubise  was  called  le  roi  des 
Parpaillaux  (the  patois  for  papillons),  because  he 
and  his  followers  fluttered  round  the  fire  and  the 
stake.  The  word  mouchard  is  supposed  to  be  de- 
rived from  Antoine  de  Mouchy,  the  most  zealous 
ferreter-out  of  heretics.  Proverbs  like  riche  comnie 
un  Huguenot,  or  honnete  comme  un  Huguenot,  recall 
the  envy  which  was  roused  by  the  virtues  and  wealth 
of  the  Protestants.  Deepest  of  all  is  the  mark 
which  the  suppression  of  French  Protestantism  has 
left  on  the  political,  industrial,  and  intellectual  life 
of  the  nation.  It  paved  the  way  for  the  absolute 
despotism  of  the  Crown  and  the  consequent  reaction 
of  the  Revolution.  It  robbed  France  of  the  hands 
and  brains,  arts  and  industries,  of  the  best  educated, 
the  most  laborious,  frugal,  and  conscientious  of  her 
sons.  It  encouraged,  by  its  repression  of  liberty  of 
thought,  the  scepticism  of  the  eighteenth  century 
and  the  anti-clerical  feeling  of  the  late  Republic. 

From  the  martyrology  of  Crespin,  and  other 
writers, might  be  cited  almost  innumerable  instances, 
in  which  the  Psalms  sustained  the  courage  of  French 
Protestants  in  the  midst  of  mortal  agony.  In  1 524, 
when  the  Psalter  had  not  been  versified,  and  was 
hardly  known  in  the  prose  translation  of  Lef^vre 


1 88  THE  HUGUENOTS,  1524-98 

d'Etaples,  Jean  Leclerc,  the  wool-comber  of  Meaux, 
was  burned  alive  at  Metz.  Before  the  fires  were 
lighted,  he  was  subjected  to  horrible  tortures  ;  but 
his  constancy  never  wavered  as  he  repeated  the 
same  words  which  had  encouraged  the  martyrs  of 
the  early  Christian  era  :  "  Their  idols  are  silver 
and  gold  :  even  the  work  of  men's  hands.  .  .  . 
They  that  make  them  are  like  unto  them  ;  and  so 
are  all  such  as  put  their  trust  in  them  "  (Ps.  cxv., 
verses  4-8).  A  3^ear  later,  in  the  same  year  (1525) 
in  which  the  Inquisition  was  established  in  France, 
Wolfgang  Schuch,  the  Lutheran  preacher  in  Lor- 
raine, was  burned  alive  at  Nancy,  repeating  at  the 
stake  the  words  of  Psalm  li. 

The  persecution  of  the  Protestants  had  begun 
while  Francis  i.  was  engaged  in  war  with  Charles  v., 
or  detained  a  prisoner  in  Spain,  and  while  Louise  of 
Savoy  was  Regent  of  France.  Taken  captive  at 
the  battle  of  Pa  via  (1525),  Francis  had  been  brought 
under  a  guard  to  the  Church  of  the  Certosa.  When 
he  entered  the  building,  the  monks  were  singing 
Psalm  cxix.,  verses  65-72.  At  verse  71  the  king 
recovered  himself  sufficiently  to  join  in  the  words, 
"  It  is  good  for  me  that  I  have  been  in  trouble  :  that 
I  may  learn  thy  statutes."  Strong  hopes  were 
entertained  that  Francis,  for  love  of  his  sister 
Marguerite,  from  political  rivalr}'-,  or  from  personal 
sympathy,  might  place  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
Reformed  movement.  The  policy  of  the  Crown 
was  indeed,  for  a  time,  more  tolerant.  Francis  had 
delayed  to  execute  the  decree  of  the  Sorbonne 
against  Marot's  versions.  Though  he  ultimately 
forbade  their  publication,  he  was  often  heard 
humming  the  airs,  and,  on  his  death-bed,  he  ordered 
the  book  to  be  read  aloud  for  his  consolation. 
"  Knowing  that  his  last  hour  was  come,  he  set 
the  affairs  of  his  house  in  order,  commanded  that 
the  Psalms  of  Clement  Marot  should  be  brought 
to  him,  caused  some  to  be  read  aloud  to  him,  and, 


THE  PROTESTANT  MARTYRS  189 

commending  his  people  and  his  servants  to  the 
Dauphin,"  died  March  31,  1547.  But  the  general 
policy  was  not  reversed,  and  Leclerc  and  Schuch 
head  the  long  list  of  Protestant  martyrs,  who, 
from  1542  onwards,  chanted  the  Psalms  in  Marot's 
version  as  they  were  led  to  the  scaffold  or  the  stake. 
Their  song  was  taken  up  by  the  bystanders  in  the 
street.  It  was  thus  that  at  Meaux,  in  1546,  the 
fifty-seven  prisoners,  and  their  friends  in  the  crowd, 
joined  in  Psalm  Ixxix.  as  they  were  led  to  prison  ; 
and  it  was  the  same  Psalm  which  the  fourteen  who 
were  condemned  to  death  sang  on  their  way  to  the 
scaffold  : 

"  Les  gens  entrez  sont  en  ton  heritage, 
lis  ont  pollu,  seigneur,  par  leur  outrage. 
Ton  temple  sainct,   Jerusalem  destruite. 
Si  qu'en  monceaux  de  pierres  I'ont  reduite. 

lis  ont  bailie  les  corps 

De  tes  seruiteurs  morts 

Aux  corbeaux  pour  les  paistre 

Le  chair  des  bien-viuans 

Aux  animaux  suyuans 

Bois  et  pleine  champestre." 

This  is  the  Psalm  which  was  used  by  the  Jews 
every  Friday,  in  lamentation  over  the  ruins  of 
Jerusalem.  The  same  Psalm  was  applied  alike  to  the 
zealous  excesses  of  the  Huguenots  or  the  Puritans, 
and  to  the  profane  outrages  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. It  was  used  by  the  Carthusians  of  Woburn 
Abbey  at  the  time  of  the  dissolution  of  the  monas- 
teries, when  Abbot  Hobbs  called  the  brethren 
together,  and  bade  them,  "  for  the  reverence  of 
God,"  to  pray  devoutly,  and  recite  the  Psalm  Deus 
venerunt  gentes  ("  O  God,  the  heathen  are  come  into 
thine  inheritance,"  verse  i).  Verse  2  of  the  same 
Psalm  was  the  motto  chosen  by  the  Jesuit  Parsons 
for  his  book ,  De  persecutione  Anglicana  ( 1 5  8 1 ) .  The 
same  words  were  suggested  to  Luisa  de  Carvajal 
by  the  sight  of  those  Roman  Catholics  who  were 
executed  in  London  in  1 608 .   ' '  We  can  hardly  go  out 


190  THE  HUGUENOTS,  1524-98 

to  walk  without  seeing  the  heads  and  Hmbs  of  our 
dear  and  holy  ones  stuck  up  on  the  gates  that  divide 
the  streets,  and  the  birds  of  the  air  perching  on 
them  ;  which  makes  me  think  of  the  verse  in  the 
Psalms,  '  The  dead  bodies  of  thy  servants  have 
they  given  to  be  meat  unto  the  fowls  of  the  air  '  " 
(Ps.  Ixxix.,  verse  2). 

In  vain  the  Catholic  priests,  attending  at  the 
executions  of  the  Huguenots,  tried  to  drown  the 
thunder  of  Marot's  Psalms  with  their  Latin  chants. 
The  words  lacked  the  savage  energy  of  the  verna- 
cular French  ;  the  unknown  tongue  awakened  no 
response  from  the  crowd.  Many  victims  were 
gagged  before  being  burned  :  but  the  fire  severed 
the  cords  which  held  the  instruments  in  their  place, 
and,  with  charred  lips,  the  sufferers  raised  the 
Psalms.  Others,  whose  tongues  had  been  cut 
out,  uttered  sounds  in  which,  though  barely  articu- 
late, bystanders  recognised  the  familiar  words.  So 
it  was  at  Angers,  in  1556,  that  Jean  Rabec  at  the 
stake,  while  he  was  being  alternately  raised  and 
lowered  into  the  flames,  continued  to  sing  Psalm 
Ixxix.,  half  choked  with  blood,  till  his  end  arrived. 
It  was  while  a  Protestant  congregation  was  singing 
psalms  in  the  grange  at  Vassy,  in  1562,  that  Guise 
gave  the  signal  for  the  massacres  of  the  Huguenots 
which  finally  provoked  the  Wars  of  Religion. 
When  once  the  sword  was  drawn,  the  Psalms  became 
the  war-songs  of  the  Huguenots.  On  the  battle- 
fields of  Coligny  or  Henry  of  Navarre  were  heard 
such  chants  as  Psalms  Ixxvi.  or  cxviii.,  or,  above  all, 
Beza's  version  of  Psalm  Ixviii.  : 

"  Que  Dicu  so  inonstre  seulement, 
Et  on  verra  soudaincinent 
Abandonncr  la  place 
Le  camp  des  cnnemis  espars, 
Et  ses  liaincux,  de  toutes  pars, 
Fuir  dcuant  sa  face." 

In  the  early  periods  of  the  civil  wars  of  the  six- 


GASPARD  DE  COLIGNY  191 

teenth  century,  the  Huguenots  moved  as  one  man  ; 
their  union  was  their  strength.  The  central  figure 
is  Gaspard  de  CoHgny,  as  Henry  iv.  is  the  leader 
in  their  later  stages.  Throughout  the  struggle,  the 
royal  family  gave  chieftains  to  Roman  Catholics 
and  Protestants  alike  ;  both  sides  fought  under 
princes  of  the  blood.  On  both  sides  were  arrayed 
the  heads  of  powerful  families,  who  led  their  feudal 
levies  to  the  field.  Politics  and  religion  were 
mingled ;  the  Roman  Catholics  represented  the 
influence  of  Spain  :  the  Protestants  raised  the  cry 
of  "France  for  the  French."  Though  the  Roman 
Catholics  showed  but  little  religious  enthusiasm, 
and  all  the  zeal  was  to  be  found  among  the  Hugue- 
nots, yet  the  ultimate  triumph  of  toleration  was 
effected  by  the  triumph  of  a  political  party,  which 
placed  its  chief  upon  the  throne  in  the  person  of 
Henry  of  Navarre. 

In  March  1568,  the  Treaty  of  Longjumeau  gave 
the  Huguenots  a  breathing  space.  Their  leaders 
retired  to  their  homes  in  the  country  ;  their  followers 
were  disbanded,  their  mercenaries  dismissed.  Gas- 
pard de  Coligny,  Admiral  of  France,  returned  to  his 
gardens  on  the  terraced  slopes  of  Chatillon-sur- 
Loing,  and,  clad  in  farmer's  dress,  pruned  his  fruit 
trees.  But  the  treacherous  calm  only  half  con- 
cealed the  coming  storm.  Catherine  de  Medicis 
merely  sought  to  gain  time.  The  peace  was  unreal. 
No  effort  was  made  to  restrain  the  violence  of 
the  Roman  Catholics.  Coligny 's  treasures  had 
been  seized,  and  he  could  obtain  no  redress.  Shots 
were  fired  at  him  ;  he  was  ordered  to  reduce  his 
retinue;  one  of  his  gentlemen  was  murdered.  He 
retired  to  the  castle  of  his  brother  Andelot,  at  Tanlay, 
near  Tonnerre,  so  that  he  might  be  close  to  Conde 
at  Noyers.  There  the  stern,  reserved  Coligny, 
whose  thoughtful,  serious  face,  with  its  square, 
high  forehead,  firm  mouth  and  melancholy  grey 
eyes,  looks  down  from  among  the  portraits  of  the 


192  THE  HUGUENOTS,  1524-98 

Grands  Amiraux  of  France,  held  frequent  counsel 
with  his  colleague.  No  two  men  could  be  more 
different  from  each  other  than  the  two  leaders  of 
the  Huguenot  cause.  The  one  was  the  Washington, 
the  other  the  Rupert,  of  the  Huguenots.  Coligny, 
cold  in  manner,  severe  in  demeanour,  slow  in 
the  expression  of  his  opinions,  pitiless  towards 
himself,  inflexible  in  his  judgment  towards  others, 
was  most  formidable  in  defeat,  and  won  his  greatest 
successes  in  retrieving  disasters.  Upon  this  dis- 
tinctive feature  in  the  Admiral's  greatness  Voltaire 
has  seized,  in  the  Henriade  : 

"  Savant  dans  les  combats,  savant  dans  les  retraites, 
Plus  grand,  plus  glorieux,  plus  craint  dans  des  defaites. 
Que  Dunois  ni  Gaston  ne  I'ont  jamais  et6 
Dans  le  cours  triomphant  de  leur  prosperite." 

Conde  was  a  dashing  cavalry  officer,  whose  charge 
was  irresistible.  Chivalrously  courageous,  fond  of 
pleasure,  with  nothing  of  the  Puritan  in  his  nature  ; 
loving  other  poeple's  wives,  so  Brantome  says,  as 
much  as  his  own  ;  excelling,  in  spite  of  his  slight 
figure  and  round  shoulders,  in  all  manly  exercises  ; 
he  was  the  darling  of  the  people  of  Paris,  and  dis- 
puted their  favour  with  the  Due  de  Guise.  On 
these  two  men,  each  so  different,  depended  the  for- 
tune of  the  Huguenot  cause.  To  destroy  them  was 
the  aim  of  Catherine.  Had  not  the  Duke  of  Alva 
said,  that  the  head  of  one  salmon  was  worth  a 
thousand  frogs  ? 

In  the  summer  months  of  1568  the  royal  troops 
were  collected  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Tanlay  and 
Noyers.  Royal  guards  held  the  gatehouses,  fords, 
and  bridges.  A  warning  reached  Conde  and  Coligny. 
A  horseman  galloped  past  Noyers,  sounding  his 
horn,  and  crymg  out,  "  The  stag  is  in  the  snare  ! 
The  hunt  is  up  !  "  Instant  flight  was  necessary. 
At  midnight,  on  August  25,  1568,  the  Huguenot 
leaders,  with  their  families  and  fifty  followers,  left 
Noyers  to  run  the  gauntlet  of  their  enemies,  and 


THE  PASSAGE  OF  THE  LOIRE       193 

traverse  the  many  hundred  miles  which  lay  between 
them  and  their  refuge  at  Rochelle.  The  pursuit 
was  hot.  Led  b}^  a  huntsman  who  knew  the  fords 
and  forest  paths,  they  reached  the  Loire  at  a  spot 
above  Cosne,  near  Sancerre.  They  crossed  the  river, 
their  horses  wading  only  to  their  girths.  As  day 
broke,  the  river  rose  in  flood.  The  fugitives  were 
j  saved.     They  had  placed  a  barrier  between  them- 

j  selves  and  their  pursuers.     Rochelle  could  yet  be 

i  reached  in  safety.     They  fell  on  their  knees  on  the 

'  farther  bank  and  gave  thanks,  singing  the    114th 

!  Psalm,  verse  5,  "  What  aileth  thee,  O  thou  sea,"  etc. 

I  The   war  was   renewed.     At   Jarnac   (1569)   the 

I  Roman     Catholics     gained     a    victory,    in    which 

I  Conde  was   killed.     At  Moncontour,  in    the    same 

I  year,   Coligny   himself    was   disastrously    defeated. 

'  Wounded  in  three  places,  he  was  carried  from  the 

I  field  in  a  litter.     As  Lestrange,  one  of  his  old  com- 

I  panions  in  arms,  also  severely  wounded,  was  being 

j  carried    past    him,    he    thrust    his    head    into    the 

I  Admiral's   litter,   and,  without  strength  for  more, 

j  whispered,   "  Si,  est-ce   que   Dieu  est   tres   doux." 

I  ("  Truly  God  is  loving  unto  Israel,  even  unto  such 

as  are  of  a  clean  heart,"  Ps.  Ixxiii.,  verse  i .)  The 
words,  as  Coligny  told  a  friend,  revived  his  failing 
courage.  His  firmness  returned,  and  he  set  himself 
to  restore  the  fortunes  of  his  cause.  From  all  the 
mountain  districts  of  the  Vivarais,  the  Cevennes,  and 
the  Forez,  the  Huguenots  flocked  to  his  standard.  A 
new  spirit  animated  his  followers .  They  sang,  as  they 
passed  through  a  hostile  country  and  deserted  villages, 

"  Le  prince  de  Conde 
II  a  este  tue, 
Mais  monsieur  I'Amiral 
Est  encore  a  cheval 
Pour  chasser  les  papaux,  papaux." 

Coligny 's  name  overshadowed  that  of  the  king. 
"  De  I'Amiral  de  France,"  says  Brantome,  "  il  etait 
plus  parle  que  du  roi  de  France."     At  the  head  of  his 


194  THE  HUGUENOTS,  1524-98 

army  he  had,  within  a  year,  extorted  from  Catherine 
de  Medicis,  and  the  unhappy  red-haired  3'outh,  who 
bears  the  sinister  title  of  Charles  ix.,  the  Treaty  of 
St.  Germain-en-Laye  (1570). 

Coligny  was  the  chief  victim  of  the  Massacre 
of  St.  Bartholomew,  August  24,  1572.  The  same 
event  introduces  the  hero  of  the  second  period  of  the 
Civil  Wars.  A  prisoner  at  the  court  of  Charles  ix., 
surrounded  in  Paris  by  the  murderers  of  his  friends, 
tempted  by  all  the  sensual  allurements  which 
Catherine  de  Medicis  had  thrown  in  his  way,  Henry 
of  Navarre  seemed  to  have  forgotten  ambition,  and 
to  welcome  inaction.  Only  two  of  his  former 
attendants  remained  faithful  to  the  young  king — 
his  squire,  d'Aubigne,  and  his  valet,  Armagnac. 
Even  they  were  weary  of  the  task,  and  on  the 
eve  of  quitting  so  unworthy  a  master.  But  one 
evening,  when  Henry  was  in  bed,  ill,  feverish,  and 
depressed,  they  heard  him  singing  softly  to  himself 
the  words  of  Psalm  Ixxxviii.  (verses  7-10,  18), 
"  Thou  hast  put  away  mine  acquaintance  far  from 
me,  and  made  me  to  be  abhorred  of  them.  I  am 
so  fast  in  prison  that  I  cannot  get  forth.  .  .  .  Dost 
thou  show  wonders  among  the  dead  ;  or  shall  the 
dead  rise  up  again  and  praise  thee  ?  .  .  .  My  lovers 
and  friends  hast  thou  put  away  from  me,  and  hid 
mine  acquaintance  out  of  my  sight."  The  squire 
felt  that  the  young  king's  chivalrous  spirit  was  not 
wholly  extinct.  He  urged  him  to  throw  in  his  lot 
with  the  faithful  adherents  who  were  fighting  that 
enemy  whom  Henry  himself  was  serving.  A  few 
months  later,  the  king  escaped  from  Paris,  crossed 
the  Seine  at  Poissy,  traversed  a  country  held  by  the 
forces  of  the  Guises,  and  at  Alengon  placed  himself 
at  the  head  of  the  Huguenots.  The  next  morning 
when  he  attended  service,  the  psalm  which  was  ap- 
pointed to  be  sung  was  Psalm  xxi.,  "  The  king  shall 
rejoice  in  thy  strength,  O  Lord,"  etc.  The  omen 
seemed  so  propitious  that  Henry  asked  whether  the 


SIEGE  OF  ROCHELLE  195 

psalm  had  been  selected  to  welcome  him  to  the  camp. 
But  it  had  come  in  its  natural  course.  Henry 
remembered,  so  d'Aubigne  tells  the  story,  that  this 
was  the  same  psalm  which  the  companion  of  his 
passage  across  the  Seine  at  Poissy  had  sung,  as, 
with  their  bridles  on  their  arms,  they  walked  their 
horses  to  and  fro  by  the  side  of  the  river,  waiting 
for  the  rest  of  the  party. 

Already  Rochelle  had  repulsed  the  triumphant 
Roman  Catholics.  The  town  had  preserved  its 
municipal  independence  since  it  was  surrendered  by 
the  English  at  the  Peace  of  Bretigny.  Taxing  itself, 
electing  its  own  magistrates,  protected  on  the  land 
by  impregnable  walls,  opening  or  closing  its  port 
at  its  own  pleasure,  sweeping  the  seas  with  its  own 
powerful  navies,  Rochelle  was  the  Venice  or  Amster- 
dam of  France.  It  was  also  its  Geneva,  the  city  of 
refuge  to  which  fled  Protestants  from  all  parts  of 
the  country.  But  for  the  moment  its  fate  trembled 
in  the  balance.  Outside  the  walls  of  the  Huguenot 
stronghold  were  encamped  the  royal  armies,  in 
which  Brantome  held  a  command.  Within  the  city 
were  crowded  the  citizens  and  refugees.  After  five 
weeks  of  battering  and  skirmishes,  a  general  assault 
was  delivered.  Four  times  the  besiegers  were  driven 
back,  and,  as  they  recoiled,  the  battle-song  of  the 
Huguenots,  Que  Dieu  se  monstre  seulemeni  (Ps. 
Ixviii.  "  Let  God  arise,  and  let  his  enemies  be 
scattered  "),  rose  in  triumph  from  the  ramparts. 
The  siege  was  raised  (1573),  and  thus  the  claim 
of  the  citizens  was  vindicated,  that  Rochelle  was 
founded  on  an  impregnable  rock. 

In  the  years  that  followed,  the  interest  of  the 
Wars  of  Religion  centres  round  Henry  of  Navarre. 
With  two  at  least  of  his  victories,  the  Psalms  are 
strikingly  associated.  At  the  battle  of  Courtras, 
October  20,  1587,  before  the  fight  began,  the 
Huguenots  knelt  in  prayer,  and  chanted  Ps.  cxviii., 
verses  24,  25  : 

14 


196  THE  HUGUENOTS,  1524-98 

"  La  voici  I'licureuse  iournce 
Que  Dieu  a  faite  a  plein  dcsir, 
Par  nous  soit  ioye  demcnee 
Et  prenons  en  ellc  plaisir. 
O  Dieu  eternal,  ie  te  prie, 
le  te  prie,  ton  Roy  maintien  : 
O  Dieu,  ie  te  prie  et  rcprie, 
Sauuc  ton  Roy  et  I'entretien." 

"  'Sdeath,"  cried  a  young  courtier  to  the  Due  de 
Joyeuse,  who  commanded  the  Roman  CathoUcs, 
"  the  cowards  are  afraid  ;  they  are  confessing  them- 
selves." "  Sire,"  said  a  scarred  veteran,  "  when 
the  Huguenots  behave  thus,  the}^  are  ready  to  fight 
to  the  death."  The  battle  ended  in  the  triumph  of 
Henry.  The  Due  de  Joyeuse  was  killed,  and  his 
army  utterly  routed.  More  than  forty  years  after- 
wards (1630),  d'Aubigne  lay  on  his  deathbed. 
Perhaps  the  memory  of  the  victory  returned  at  his 
last  moments  to  the  dying  man.  "  Two  hours  before 
his  death,"  so  wrote  his  widow,  "  with  a  glad  coun- 
tenance, and  with  a  peaceful,  contented  mind,  he 
repeated  the  Psalm,  '  La  voici  I'heureuse  iournee,' 
etc.,  and  so  passed  to  his  rest." 

In  1589  Henry  gained  another  victory  under  the 
walls  of  the  Chateau  d'Arques,  the  picturesque  ruins 
of  which  are  still  standing  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Dieppe.  There  the  king  and  his  Huguenot  followers 
were  threatened  with  destruction  by  the  Due  de 
Mayenne  and  the  army  of  the  League.  His  forces 
were  but  few  compared  with  the  number  of  those 
arrayed  against  them  ;  his  reinforcements  had  failed 
him  ;  the  courage  of  his  men  was  crushed  by  the 
weight  of  superior  numbers.  "  Come,  M.  le 
Ministre,"  cried  the  king  to  Pastor  Damour,  "  lift 
the  psalm.  It  is  full  time."  Then,  above  the  din 
of  the  marching  armies,  rose  the  austere  melody  of 
the  68th  Psalm,  set  to  the  words  of  Beza,  and  swing- 
ing with  the  march  of  the  Huguenot  companies. 
Pressing  onwards,  the  men  of  Dieppe  forced  them- 
selves like  an  iron  wedge  through  the  lines  of  the 


HENRY  OF  NAVARRE  197 

League,  and  split  them  asunder.  The  sea  fog  cleared 
away  ;  Henry's  artillerymen  in  the  castle  could  see 
to  take  aim  ;  the  roll  of  cannon  marked  the  time  of 
the  psalm  ;    and  the  Leaguers  were  scattered. 

The  triumph  of  Henry  iv.  in  1598  restored  the 
Psalter  to  the  Court  of  France.  Once  more  the 
Psalms,  which  Francis  i.  had  hummed  so  gail}^, 
were  sung  at  the  Louvre.  By  the  Edict  of  Nantes, 
peace  was  for  a  time  imposed  upon  France.  It 
was  the  Magna  Charta  of  the  Reformed  churches, 
guaranteeing  to  the  Huguenots  freedom  of  worship 
in  specified  places,  admitting  them  to  civil  rights, 
offices,  and  dignities,  providing  for  the  trial  of 
Protestant  causes  by  mixed  benches  of  judges,  and 
securing  enjoyment  of  these  privileges  by  the  posses- 
sion of  fortified  towns.  During  the  life  of  Henry  iv., 
the  son  of  Jeanne  d'Albret,  pupil  of  Coligny,  and 
hero  of  a  hundred  fights  against  the  Catholic  League, 
the  king's  personal  influence  maintained  the  com- 
pact. Yet,  at  the  best,  the  Edict  of  Nantes  pro- 
claimed a  truce  rather  than  a  lasting  peace. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

The  Huguenots,   i  600-1 762  {continued) 

The  Roman  Catholic  Reaction — Vincent  dc  Paul,  Franfois  de  Sales  : 
changed  conditions  of  the  Huguenot  cause  ;  their  effect  on  the 
character  of  the  Wars  of  Religion  1621-29 — Henri  de  Rohan, 
sieges  of  Montauban  and  la  Rochelle  ;  the  Roman  Catholic 
triumph  and  maintenance  of  the  strictest  orthodoxy — Port 
Royal,  Pascal,  Madame  Guyon  ;  Edicts  against  the  Hugue- 
nots and  the  use  of  the  Psalter  :  the  Vaudois  and  Henri  Ar- 
naud  ;  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  (1685)  ;  persecution 
of  the  French  Huguenots  ;  the  rising  in  the  Cevennes — murder 
of  Franfois  du  Chayla,  Cavalier  and  the  Camisards,  Bellot, 
Martignargues  (1704),  Salindres  (1709)  ;  the  Pastors  of  the 
Desert — Rang,  Roger,  Benezet,  Rochette  ;  effect  of  the  Psalms 
on  the  virtues  and  defects  of  the  Huguenots. 

THE  French  Wars  of  Religion,  waged  in  the 
seventeenth  century  by  the  Due  de  Rohan 
and  Cardinal  Richelieu,  differed  materially  from 
those  led  by  the  Guises  on  the  one  side,  and  by 
Coligny  or  Henry  of  Navarre  on  the  other.  The 
Huguenots  were  now  confronted  by  a  Roman 
Catholic  reaction.  The  austerities  of  monastic 
life  were  revived,  and  to  these  was  added  the 
cultivation  of  learning.  Benedictines,  Dominicans, 
Franciscans,  set  their  houses  in  order  ;  Clairvaux, 
Citeaux,  and  Cluny  underwent  a  reformation. 
Jesuits  laboured  in  the  world  for  the  advancement 
of  the  Roman  faith,  and  multiplied  their  schools  and 
seminaries .  New  religious  orders  supplied  preachers 
and  made  proselytes.  Missions  were  conducted 
among  country  pople  by  the  new  congregation 
of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul.  Women  shared  the  same 
movements.     Montmartre,    Val     de    Grace,    Port 


ROMAN  CATHOLIC  REACTION        199 

Royal,  became  models  of  conventual  piety.  The 
Feuillantines  and  Jesuitines  rivalled  the  zeal  of  the 
Jesuits  and  the  Feuillants.  The  work  of  educating 
young  girls  was  taken  up  by  the  Port-Royalists. 
Sisters  of  Charity  found  cells  in  the  sick-room,  and 
lived  in  the  world  unscathed,  with  the  fear  of  God 
for  their  grilles,  and  pure  modesty  for  their  veils. 
Religious  communities  breathed  the  new  life 
which  the  spirit  of  St.  Frangois  de  Sales,  St.  Vincent 
de  Paul,  or  Madame  de  Chantal  inspired.  The 
ranks  of  the  secular  clergy  were  recruited  by  men 
of  ardent  faith  and  irreproachable  conduct.  Bishops, 
for  the  most  part  men  of  unstained  reputation, 
reformed  their  dioceses,  rebuilt  churches,  re- 
organised parishes,  revived  ecclesiastical  discipline, 
or  headed  philanthropic  movements,  such  as  those 
for  the  erection  of  charitable  hospitals.  Lay 
society  felt  the  influence  of  the  movement.  Mis- 
sioners  rekindled  the  Roman  faith  among  the 
poorer  classes.  Provincial  magistrates  who  had 
been  attracted  to  the  Reformed  doctrines  by  their 
logical  consistency  or  by  jealousy  of  the  Papacy, 
returned  to  the  older  faith.  Even  at  Court,  men 
and  women,  for  whom  Fenelon  wrote  his  Counsels, 
found  it  possible  to  live  pure  lives  without  renounc- 
ing the  business  or  pleasures  of  the  world. 

The  power  of  the  Roman  Catholics  was  growing, 
that  of  the  Protestants  was  decaying.  As  their 
hold  on  France  relaxed,  the  Reformed  churches 
grew  more  tenacious  of  their  privileges,  while  the 
Galilean  clergy  demanded  changes  in  the  Edict 
of  Nantes.  The  balance  of  parties,  on  which  the 
Edict  was  founded,  was  disturbed  by  gains  on  the 
one  side  and  losses  on  the  other.  Was  the  Edict 
to  remain  untouched  ? 

In  this  religious  reaction  the  Psalms  pla3^ed  their 
part.  They  were  not  the  exclusive  possession  of 
the  Huguenots .  Men  of  the  type  of  Montaigne  might 
condemn  "  the  promiscuous,   rash,   and  indiscreet 


200  THE  HUGUENOTS,  1600-1762 

use  of  the  holy  and  divine  songs  which  the  Holy 
Spirit  inspired  in  David,"  or  deprecate  placing 
them  in  the  hands  of  "  shop-bo3^s."  But  their 
power  was  recognised.  The  Abbe  Desportcs,  the 
effeminate  Petrarch  of  the  Court  of  Henry  iii., 
translated  the  whole  Psalter  into  French  verse. 
Courtiers  and  State  officials,  like  Jean  Metezeau, 
or  Michel  de  Marillac,  versified  the  Psalter  in  the 
hope  of  rivalling  the  work  of  Marot  and  of  Beza. 
The  preface  to  the  version  of  Metezeau,  which  is 
dedicated  to  Henry  iv.,  is  a  strange  production. 
"  David,"  he  says,  "  was  somewhat  prone  to  love 
women,  and  that  love  of  women  is  the  only  charge 
which  Your  enemies  can  make  against  Your 
Majesty  ;  but  Your  Majesty  has  one  advantage 
over  the  wise  King,  that  You  have  not  on  this 
account  drawn  down  the  wrath  of  God  neither 
upon  Yourself  nor  upon  Your  people."  Corneille 
and  Racine  translated  portions  of  the  Psalter. 
But  of  the  numerous  translations  that  were  made 
as  pious  or  literary  exercises,  the  only  successful 
version  was  that  of  Godeau,  Bishop  of  Grasse 
and  Vence.  His  paraphrases  were  set  to  music, 
and  four  of  the  airs  were  composed  by  Louis  xiii. 
himself.  In  his  preface,  Godeau  explains  the 
object  of  his  work.  "  To  know  the  Psalms  by 
heart,"  he  says,  "  is  among  Protestants  a  sign 
of  their  communion.  To  our  shame  it  must  be 
said,  that,  in  towns  or  districts  where  Protestants 
are  numerous,  the  Psalms  are  ever  on  the  lips  of 
artisans  and  labourers,  while  Catholics  are  either 
dumb  or  sing  obscene  songs."  Godeau's  success 
was  greatest  in  a  direction  which  he  scarcely 
anticipated,  or  desired.  Forbidden  by  edicts  to  sing 
psalms  at  home,  in  the  version  of  Marot  and  Beza, 
the  Huguenots  sang  them  in  that  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  bishop .  So  widespread  became  the  practice, 
that  fresh  edicts  were  issued  in  general  terms,  alto- 
gether prohibiting  the  singing  of  Psalms  in  French. 


VINCENT  DE  PAUL  201 

But,  apart  from  the  multiplication  of  versions  of 
the  Psalms,  their  universal  influence  may  be 
illustrated  from  the  lives  of  leaders  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  reaction.  Such  men  as  St.  Vincent  de 
Paul  or  St.  Francois  de  Sales  may  be  taken  as 
examples. 

From  Cadiz  to  Patras  the  Mediterranean  and 
its  coasts  were  scoured  by  the  corsairs  of  Barbary, 
Their  light  galliots  and  brigantines  swept  down 
on  their  prey  with  the  swiftness  and  precision  of 
the  osprey,  overbearing  resistance  and  baffling 
pursuit.  Nor  was  it  only  the  seaman,  the  mer- 
chant, or  the  traveller,  who  ran  the  risk  of  slavery. 
Landing  on  the  shore,  the  corsairs  swept  off  whole 
villages  into  captivity.  The  peasant  of  Provence, 
returning  home  at  nightfall  from  pruning  his  vines 
or  his  olives,  might  find  him^self  in  the  morning 
chained  to  the  oar.  The  friar,  who  told  his  beads 
on  the  outskirts  of  Valencia,  might,  before  the 
week  was  out,  be  hoeing  the  rice-fields  of  Tripoli. 
In  1605,  Vincent  de  Paul  was  making  his  way 
from  Toulouse  by  Narbonne  to  Marseilles.  The 
ship  in  which  he  was  crossing  the  Gulf  of  Lyons 
was  seized  by  Barbary  pirates,  and  both  passengers 
and  crew  carried  to  Tunis.  Sold  as  a  slave  to  a 
fisherman,  he  passed  after  a  time  into  the  hands 
of  an  apostate  Christian  from  Nice,  who  carried 
him  away  to  labour  on  an  inland  farm.  As  he 
dug  in  the  fields  under  a  burning  sun,  he  excited 
the  interest  of  one  of  the  Turkish  wives  of  his 
master.  "  One  day,"  as  Vincent  writes  in  his 
letter  to  M.  de  Commet,  "  she  asked  me  to  sing 
to  her  some  of  the  praises  of  my  God."  The 
remembrance  of  the  captive  Israelites,  "  How  shall 
we  sing  the  Lord's  song  in  a  strange  land?  "  filled 
his  heart,  and  he  sang  "  By  the  waters  of  Babylon  " 
( Ps .  cxxxvii .) .  The  woman  told  her  husband  that  he 
had  done  wrong  to  change  his  faith,  and  she  warmly 
praised  the  rehgion  that  Vincent  had  expounded  to 


202  THE  HUGUENOTS,  1 600-1 762 

her.  Her  words  sank  into  the  renegade's  heart, 
and  woke  his  slumbering  conscience.  He  deter- 
mined to  escape  and  take  Vincent  with  him.  In 
1607  they  landed  together  at  Aigues  Mortes,  and 
the  captive  was  once  more  free. 

The  same  words  have  often  expressed  the  sorrows 
of  prisoners  or  exiles.  They  rose  to  the  lips  of 
John  II.,  King  of  France,  a  prisoner  in  England 
after  the  battle  of  Poictiers,  and  a  guest  at  a 
tournament.  He  looked  on  the  brilliant  scene 
with  sorrowful  eyes,  and,  when  urged  to  enjoy  the 
splendour  of  the  pageant,  answered  mournfully, 
"  How  shall  we  sing  the  Lord's  song  in  a  strange 
land  ?  "  (Ps.  cxxxvii.,  verse  4).  vSo  also  the  same 
psalm  had  appealed  with  peculiar  force  to  Luiz  de 
Camoens,  the  epic  poet  of  Portugal.  In  March 
1553  he  had  been  released  from  prison  on  con- 
dition that  he  sailed  for  India.  As  in  the  twilight 
the  ship  dropped  down  the  "  golden-sanded  "  Tagus, 
he  exclaimed,  like  Scipio  Africanus,  "  Ungrateful 
country  !  thou  shalt  not  possess  my  bones."  Even 
at  Goa  he  found  no  rest.  His  satires  on  the  vices 
of  the  inhabitants  caused,  it  is  said,  his  banishment 
to  Macao.  There  much  of  the  Lusiad  was  written  ; 
there  also  he  made  a  modest  fortune.  Embarking 
on  board  ship,  he  set  sail  for  Goa.  But,  on  the 
voyage,  he  was  wrecked  off  the  Mekong  River,  on 
the  coast  of  Cochin  China.  All  that  he  had  was 
lost  ;  he  had  only  preserved  the  manuscript  of  his 
poem,  when,  friendless,  ruined,  and  alone,  he 
landed  on  the  "gentle  Mecon's  friendly  shore." 

"  Now  blest  with  all  the  wealth  fond  hope  could  crave, 
Soon  I  beheld  that  wealth  beneath  the  wave 
For  ever  lost  ;    myself  escaped  alone, 
On  the  wild  shore,  all  friendless,  hopeless,  thrown  ; 
My  life,  like  Judah's  heaven-doomed  King  of  yore, 
By  miracle  prolonged."  ^ 

As  he  sat  by  the  banks  of  the  Mekong,  waiting  for 

^  Lusiad,  Book  vii. 


CAMOENS  203 

means  of  returning  to  Goa,  his  heart  by  the  Tagus, 
his  eyes  searching  the  ocean  for  a  sail,  he  wrote 
the  paraphrase  of  Psalm  cxxxvii.,  which  is  the  finest 
metrical  version  of  the  poem.  By  the  same  words 
Heine  was  inspired  to  begin  a  metrical  version  of  a 
psalm,  which,  in  another  mood,  he  parodied.  How 
often,  and  with  what  pathetic  force,  must  the  words 
of  the  exiles'  lament  have  appealed  to  the  Puritans 
in  New  England,  or  to  the  Huguenots  in  Canada  ! 
What  memories  of  silent  tragedies  must  they  have 
stirred  in  the  hearts  of  the  Covenanters,  toiling 
among  the  slaves  in  the  sugar  plantations  or  the 
rice-fields  of  the  West  Indies  and  America  ! 

This  digression  on  the  use  of  a  particular  psalm 
may  be  allowed,  in  view  of  its  peculiar  appropriate- 
ness to  the  lot  of  the  exiled  Huguenots.  But,  here. 
Psalm  cxxxvii.  was  referred  to  as  an  illustration  of 
the  influence  of  the  Psalter  on  the  lives  of  leaders 
in  the  Roman  reaction.  A  psalm  had  freed  St. 
Vincent  de  Paul  to  labour  for  the  Catholic  faith 
in  his  native  land.  By  the  Psalms  was  inspired 
the  hfe  of  St.  Frangois  de  Sales,  Bishop  of  Geneva 
(1567-1622). 

Few  men  have  been  more  widely  revered  for  the 
sanctity  of  their  characters  and  the  active  beauty 
of  their  careers.  To  some  he  is  most  widely  known 
as  the  friend  of  Madame  de  Chantal,  whom  he 
placed  over  his  Order  of  the  Visitation  ;  others 
know  him  best  from  the  reminiscences  which 
Bishop  Camus' gathered  in  his  Esprit  de  St.  Frangois 
de  Sales  :  others  revere  his  name  for  the  charm 
which  he  gave  to  personal  holiness.  Nobly  born, 
brilliant  in  intellect,  he  added  to  his  mental  and 
spiritual  gifts  the  fascination  of  a  singularly  at- 
tractive appearance.  From  his  birth  near  Annecy, 
among  the  beautiful  mountain  scenery  of  Savoy, 
his  mother,  whose  first  child  he  was,  looked  upon 
him  as  "  lent  to  the  Lord,"  and,  at  an  early  age, 
the  bent  of  his  character  was  clearly  shown.     His 


204  THE  HUGUENOTS,   1 600-1 762 

mind  was  so  steeped  in  the  Psalter,  that  his  thoughts 
naturally  clothed  themselves  in  the  words  of  the 
Psalms.  The  rule  of  life  which  he  laid  down  for 
himself  in  his  twentieth  year,  is  founded  on  their 
language.  He  promises  to  hear  Mass  with  all 
the  earnestness  of  his  soul,  crying  out,  "  O  come 
hither  and  behold  the  works  of  the  Lord  "  (Ps. 
xlvi.,  verse  8).  If  in  the  night  he  wakes,  he  will 
pray  the  Lord  to  "  lighten  his  darkness  "  ;  he 
"  will  water  his  couch  with  tears  "  (Ps.  vi.,  verse  6) 
for  his  indifference  to  sin.  If  midnight  terrors 
beset  him,  he  will  remember  that  "  He  that  keepeth 
Israel  shall  neither  slumber  nor  sleep  "  (Ps.  cxxi., 
verse  4),  and  that  he  will  be  "  safe  under  his 
feathers  "  (Ps.  xci.,  verse  4).  "  The  Lord  is  my 
light  and  my  salvation,  ...  of  whom,  then, 
shall  I  be  afraid  ?  "  (Ps.  xxvii.,  verse  i). 

While  studying  law  at  Padua  in  1591,  he  was 
seized  with  rheumatic  fever.  His  life  was  de- 
spaired of.  Ready  for  death,  he  received  the  last 
Sacrament,  and  awaited  his  end  with  resignation, 
repeating  such  verses  as,  "  O  how  amiable  are 
thy  dwelhngs,  thou  Lord  of  hosts  :  my  soul 
hath  a  desire  and  longing  to  enter  into  the  courts 
of  the  Lord  "  (Ps.  Ixxxiv.,  verses  1,2);  and  again, 
"  The  Lord  is  my  light  and  my  salvation;  .  .  . 
of  whom,  then,  shall  I  be  afraid?"  (Ps.  xxvii., 
verse  i) ;  or  again,  "  Blessed  is  he  .  .  .  whose  hope  is 
in  the  Lord  his  God  "  (Ps.  cxlvi.,  verse  4).  But  he 
recovered,  and,  two  years  later,  was  ordained,  sorely 
against  the  will  of  his  father,  who  desired  him,  as  his 
eldest  son  and  heir,  to  take  his  place  in  the  w^orld. 
His  life  at  Chablais,  as  a  missionary  among  the 
Calvinists  (i  593-1 603),  or  at  Geneva,  as  the  ad- 
ministrator of  a  diocese  (1603-22),  was  a  psalm  in 
action.  It  was  to  the  Psalms  that  in  death  he 
turned  for  the  expression  of  his  confidence  and  hope. 

On  the  Feast  of  St.  John,  1622,  he  was  struck 
down  by  a  paralytic  seizure,  which  left  his  mind 


FRANgOIS  DE  SALES  205 

unclouded.  A  friendly  visitor  expressed  regret  at 
his  condition.  "  Father,"  he  replied,  "  I  am 
waiting  on  God's  mercy  :  Expedans ,  expectavi 
Doniinuni  et  intendit  tnihi  "  ("  I  waited  patiently 
for  the  Lord,  and  he  inclined  unto  me,  and  heard 
my  calling,"  Ps.  xl.,  verse  i).  "  If  it  were  God's 
will,  ye  would  gladly  depart  now  ?  "  continued 
his  friend.  "  If  God  wills  it,  I  will  it  too,"  answered 
the  bishop  :  "  now,  or  a  little  while  hence — what 
matters  it  ?  "  As  other  friends  came  to  see  the 
dying  man,  the  words  of  the  Psalms  seemed  ever 
on  his  lips.  Often  he  was  heard  to  murmur  :  "  My 
soul  hath  a  desire  and  longing  to  enter  into  the 
courts  of  the  Lord  :  my  heart  and  my  flesh  rejoice 
in  the  living  God  "  (Ps.  Ixxxiv.,  verse  2).  "  My 
song  shall  be  alwa^^  of  the  loving-kindness  of  the 
Lord  "  (Ps.  Ixxxix.,  verse  i).  "  When  I  am  in 
heaviness,  I  will  think  upon  God  "  (Ps.  Ixxvii., 
verse  3).  "  When  shall  I  come  to  appear  before 
the  presence  of  God  ?  "  (Ps.  xlii.,  verse  2).  "  Did 
he,"  asked  one  of  the  w^atchers  by  his  bedside,  "  fear 
the  last  struggle  ?  "  "  Mine  eyes  are  ever  looking 
unto  the  Lord,  for  he  shall  pluck  my  feet  out  of 
the  net  "  (Ps.  xxv.,  verse  14),  was  the  reply.  He 
died  in  the  evening  of  the  Holy  Innocents'  Day,  1622. 
Men  like  St.  Vincent  de  Paul  or  St.  Frangois  de 
Sales  had  turned  the  tide  of  religious  enthusiasm. 
It  was  now  on  the  side  of  Roman  Catholics.  The 
change  brought  into  clear  relief  the  position  occupied 
by  the  Huguenots,  who  formed  a  State  within  a 
State,  a  smaller  France  within  the  arms  of  the 
larger,  a  separate  people  protected  by  fortified  cities, 
organised  by  distinct  political  institutions,  defended, 
if  need  be,  by  its  own  armies,  maintaining  its  own 
ambassadors,  supported  by  foreign  alliances.  The 
strangeness  of  the  position  was  further  illustrated 
by  the  political  position  of  France  during  the  years 
which  intervened  between  the  death  of  Henry  iv. 
and  the  ascendancy  of  Richelieu.     The  queen,  the 


206  THE  HUGUENOTS,  1600-1762 

ministers,  the  princes  of  the  blood,  the  nobiUty, 
each  fought  for  their  own  hand.  No  leader  and 
no  party  espoused  any  great  cause  ;  personal  am- 
bitions overrode  public  policy  ;  individual  interests 
supplanted  patriotism.  The  Crown  had  been 
respected  ;  it  was  now  despised.  State  affairs  had 
been  guided  towards  definite  ends  ;  now  they 
drifted  to  and  fro  in  confusion.  Favourites  without 
services,  ministers  without  ideas,  marshals  without 
armies,  successively  wielded  an  authority  of  which 
they  knew  not  the  use.  Before  many  years  had 
passed,  absolute  power  proved  the  only  cure  for 
anarchy  ;  from  a  want  of  government,  France 
passed  to  its  excess.  For  the  next  few  years,  how- 
ever, two  forces — the  nobility  and  the  Reformed 
churches — now  alhed,  now  divided,  opposed  the 
Crown  and  convulsed  the  country.  Internal  peace 
and  external  strength  seemed  to  be  lost  to  France, 
till  Richelieu  had  restored  and  aggrandised  the 
power  of  the  monarchy.  Thus  the  Reformed 
churches  were  fighting  against  the  needs  and  spirit 
of  the  age.  In  the  sixteenth  century,  the  struggle 
for  religious  and  political  independence  was  not  in 
conflict  with  the  general  tendencies  of  a  period 
which  had  barely  emerged  from  feudal  chaos.  But 
in  the  seventeenth  century  they  were  contending 
against  the  new  force  of  centralisation.  They 
fought  for  existence  as  a  State  within  a  State,  when 
the  State  itself  was  to  be  merged  in  the  Crown  ;  for 
liberty,  when  liberty  itself  was  on  the  eve  of  ex- 
tinction ;  for  walled  cities  of  security,  when  feudal 
castles  were  razed  to  the  ground  on  every  side  ;  for 
municipal  independence,  when  all  but  the  shadow 
of  civic  freedom  was  approaching  annihilation  ;  for 
representative  assemblies,  when  the  voice  of  the 
States-General  was  to  be  silenced  for  a  century  and 
a  half. 

In   the   character   of  the   religious   wars   of  the 
seventeenth  century  the  changed  conditions,  within 


DISUNION  AMONG  PROTESTANTS     207 

and  without,  were  clearly  marked.  The  Psalms 
had  not  indeed  lost  their  power.  Henri  de  Rohan, 
the  soul  of  the  Protestant  cause  in  France,  still 
relied  on  their  support.  Threatened  with  assassi- 
nation, he  had  no  fear,  for,  as  he  wrote  to  his 
mother,  April  30,  1628,  "  Whoso  dwelleth  under 
the  defence  of  the  most  High,  shall  abide  under  the 
shadow  of  the  Almighty  "  (Ps.  xci.,  verse  i).  But 
the  Huguenots  no  longer  counted  allies  in  the  royal 
family  :  the  nobility,  with  the  exception  of  Rohan 
and  Soubise,  sided  with  the  Crown.  The  Reformed 
churches  had  ceased  to  move  as  one  man  :  their 
faith  was  chilled  ;  their  religious  differences  were 
revealed  ;  they  disputed  the  policy  of  armed  resist- 
ance. North  of  the  Loire,  no  Protestant  stirred 
hand  or  foot.  The  struggle  was  confined  to  the 
Cevennes,  the  burghers  of  Rochelle,  and  the  cities 
of  the  south.  Even  in  the  latter  there  was  division, 
for  the  civic  aristocracy  dreaded  the  republican 
teaching  of  Huguenot  pastors.  The  three  short 
wars  of  1621-22,  1625-26,  and  1627-29,  were  wars  of 
sieges,  within  a  contracted  area  :  pitched  battles  were 
not,  as  in  the  previous  century,  fought  in  every  part 
of  the  country.  With  two  of  those  sieges,  that  of 
Montauban  in  1621,  and  of  Rochelle  in  1627,  the 
Psalms  are  associated. 

On  August  21,  1 62 1,  the  royal  army,  consisting 
of  20,000  men,  began  the  siege  of  Montauban,  on  the 
defence  of  which  Rohan  had  concentrated  all  his 
energies.  The  king  himself  was  in  the  camp  :  the 
Due  de  Mayenne,  Luynes,  five  marshals  of  France, 
and  a  crowd  of  the  most  distinguished  of  the  French 
nobility,  were  among  the  officers.  By  day,  on  the 
ramparts  of  the  Huguenot  stronghold,  men  and 
women  fought  side  by  side  ;  by  night,  they  repaired 
together  the  breaches  made  by  the  cannonade  of 
the  preceding  day.  Six  weeks  passed.  Winter  was 
approaching.  The  royalists  made  no  progress  ; 
the  Due  de  Mayenne  was  killed,  losses  in  officers 


208  THE  HUGUENOTS,  1 600-1 762 

and  men  were  heavy,  and,  at  the  end  of  September, 
Rohan  threw  700  men  and  a  convoy  of  provisions 
into  the  town.  At  nightfall,  on  October  17,  a 
Protestant  soldier,  serving  in  the  king's  army, 
played  under  the  battlements  of  the  town  the 
familiar  tune  of  Psalm  Ixviii.,  "  Let  God  arise,  and 
let  his  enemies  be  scattered."  It  was  a  signal  that 
the  siege  was  raised.  The  next  day  the  camp  was 
struck,  and  the  royalists  retired. 

The  siege  of  Rochelle,  in  1627-28,  was  the  central 
point  of  interest  in  the  third  and  last  of  the  civil 
wars.  On  November  6,  1627,  the  French  drove 
Buckingham  from  the  island  of  Rhe.  The  English 
fleet  sailed  away,  and  Richelieu  drew  round  the 
doomed  city  his  iron  girdle  of  famine.  Within  the 
walls  provisions  ran  short.  Every  unclean  animal 
was  eaten.  Bones,  parchment,  plaster,  leather 
gloves,  shoulder  belts,  and  saddles  were  devoured. 
Then  the  starving  people  fed  on  the  corpses  of  the 
dead.  One  woman  died  gnawing  her  own  arms. 
As  the  siege  progressed,  it  is  said  that  the  daily 
death-roll  was  400.  On  October  27,  1628,  the 
town  surrendered,  and  with  its  fall  ended  both  the 
war  and  the  independence  of  the  Reformed  churches. 

During  the  blockade,  when  her  neighbours  were 
starving,  a  widow  named  Prosni  generously  sup- 
ported many  of  the  poor  from  her  present  surplus. 
Her  sister-in-law, Madame  de  la  Goute,  remonstrated 
with  her,  asking  what  she  would  do  when  her  store  was 
expended.  "  The  Lord  will  provide,"  w^as  her  reply. 
"  Behold,"  she  said,  "  the  eye  of  the  Lord  is  upon 
them  that  fear  him,  and  upon  them  that  put  their 
trust  in  his  mercy  ;  to  deliver  their  soul  from  death, 
and  to  feed  them  in  the  time  of  dearth  "  (Ps.  xxxiii., 
verses  17,  18).  The  siege  continued,  and  Madame 
Prosni  with  her  four  children  was  in  sore  straits. 
Her  sister-in-law  taunted  her  with  her  faith  and  its 
fruits,  and  refused  all  help.  In  her  dejection  she 
returned  home,  resolving  that  she  would  at  least 


PORT  ROYAL  209 

meet  death  with  patience.  At  the  door  she  was 
welcomed  by  her  children,  dancing  with  joy.  A 
stranger ,  during  her  absence,  had  knocked  at  the  door, 
and,onitsbeingopened,hadthrowninasackofwheat 
and  departed.  She  never  discovered  the  name  of  her 
benefactor,  whose  timely  aid  enabled  her  to  support 
herself  and  her  family  till  the  siege  was  ended. 

The  Peace  of  Alais  (June  1629)  guaranteed  to  the 
Huguenots  a  full  measure  of  civil  equality,  as  well 
as  freedom  of  religious  exercises.  Had  the  spirit  of 
the  compact  been  observed,  it  might  have  healed 
the  breach.  But  the  triumph  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
reaction  was  too  complete.  The  extreme  men,  who 
assumed  the  lead,  demanded  uniformity  of  faith  ; 
heresy,  both  within  and  without  the  Church,  was  to 
be  extinguished  ;    and  the  strife  was  renewed. 

In  the  general  reform  of  conventual  and  monastic 
life,  the  Abbey  of  Port  Royal  had  set  a  striking 
example.  Behind  its  cloistered  walls,  almost  within 
sight  and  hearing  of  Versailles  and  Paris,  yet  in 
a  valley  so  sequestered  as  to  terrify  Madame  de 
Sevigne  by  its  solitude,  were  gathered  some  of  the 
purest  and  most  devoted  women  of  France,  under 
the  strict  rule  of  Mere  Angelique  Arnauld.  The 
spiritual  directions  of  St.  Francois  de  Sales,  who 
loved  the  Port-Royalists,  had  tempered  firmness 
with  gentleness,  and  given  a  charm  to  the  pursuit 
of  personal  holiness  ;  the  Petites  Ecoles  of  the  abbey 
rivalled  the  educational  establishments  of  the  Jesuits . 
But  St.  Cyran,  who  succeeded  Frangois  de  Sales  as 
spiritual  director,  was  suspected  of  heresy,  and  Port 
Royal  was  involved  in  the  charge.  Persecution  fell 
upon  the  community.  It  was  to  a  psalm  that  they 
appealed.  "  The  sisters  of  Port  Royal,"  says  Blaise 
Pascal  (and  his  own  sister  was  one  of  the  first  victims 
of  the  persecution),  "  astonished  to  hear  it  said 
that  they  were  in  the  way  of  perdition,  that  their 
confessors  were  leading  them  to  Geneva  by  teaching 
them  that  Jesus  Christ  was  neither  in  the  Eucharist 


2IO  THE  HUGUENOTS,  1 600-1 762 

nor  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  and  knowing  that  the 
charge  was  false,  committed  themselves  to  God, 
saying  with  the  Psalmist, '  Look  well  if  there  be  any 
way  of  wickedness  in  me  '  "  (Ps.  cxxxix.,  verse  24). 
M^re  Angelique  died  August  6,  1 661,  with  the  same 
words  of  the  Psalms  upon  her  lips  which  Xavier  had 
used  at  the  end  of  his  toilsome  career,  "  In  thee,  O 
Lord,  have  I  put  my  trust  ;  let  me  never  be  put 
to  confusion  "  (Ps.  xxxi.,  verse  i).  Her  brother 
Antoine,  an  exile,  or  in  hiding  for  fear  of  the  Bastille, 
had  learned  the  Psalms  by  heart  lest  his  eyesight 
should  grow  too  dim  to  read  them  daily.  It  is  a 
psalm  that  strikes  the  keynote  of  the  Pensees  of 
Pascal,  the  glory  and  the  champion  of  the  Port 
Royal  community.  His  Thoughts,  in  which  the 
Psalms  are  repeatedly  quoted,  are  jotted  down,  w'ith 
a  failing  hand,  on  loose  fragments  of  paper,  in  his 
brief  respites  from  the  agony  of  mortal  sickness. 
They  show  us  his  passionate  heart  in  the  midst  of 
strife  and  perplexity.  They  reveal,  with  the  un- 
sparing severity  of  scientific  detachment,  the  depths 
of  mystery  that  surround  the  narrow  ledge  on  which 
men  stand.  Yet,  through  all  the  gloom  and  shadow, 
there  ever  burns  the  sacred  flame  of  personal  con- 
viction, that  in  God,  and  in  God  alone,  is  light. 
Reason  had,  he  thought,  attained  its  highest  point 
when  it  realised  that  an  infinite  number  of  things  lie 
beyond  its  reach.  Men  ought  to  know  when  to 
doubt,  when  to  be  certain,  when  to  submit.  "  Feel 
no  surprise,"  he  says,  "  that  plain,  unlettered  men 
believe  the  Christian  faith  without  exercising  their 
reason.  They  are  inspired  by  God  with  a  love  of 
holiness  and  a  hatred  of  themselves.  God  inclines 
their  hearts  to  faith.  If  God  does  not  so  incline  the 
heart,  no  man  will  believe  with  a  true,  effectual 
faith.  But  if  the  heart  be  so  inclined  by  God,  none 
can  refuse  belief.  Of  this  truth  David  was  well 
aware  when  he  wrote,  '  Incline  my  heart  unto  thy 
testimonies  '  "  (Ps.  cxix.,  verse  36). 


MADAME  GUYON  211 

Like  the  Port-Royalists,  Madame  Guyon  suffered 
persecution  from  the  leaders  of  the  Catholic  reaction. 
In  her  prison  at  Vincennes  she  wrote  those  spiritual 
songs,  many  of  which  were  translated  into  English 
verse  by  William  Cowper.  Yet  into  whatever  mazes 
of  speculation  she  was  tempted,  her  own  words,  ex- 
pressed in  the  language  of  the  Psalms,  reveal  the 
starting-point  of  her  spiritual  fancies,  disclose  the 
object  of  her  quietism,  and  justify  the  defence  of 
Fenelon.  She  learnt,  by  frequent  yieldings  to 
temptation,  her  entire  dependence  on  the  Divine 
aid.  "  I  became,"  she  says,  "  deeply  assured  of 
what  the  prophet  hath  said,  '  Except  the  Lord  keep 
the  city,  the  watchman  waketh  but  in  vain  '  (Ps. 
cxxvii.,  verse  2).  When  I  looked  to  Thee,  O  my 
Lord,  Thou  wast  my  faithful  keeper  ;  Thou  didst 
continually  defend  m}^  heart  against  all  kinds  of 
enemies.  But,  alas  !  when  left  to  myself,  I  was  all 
weakness.  How  easily  did  m}^  enemies  prevail  over 
me  !  " 

When  slight  deviations  from  strict  orthodoxy 
were  punished  with  exile  or  imprisonment,  it  was 
not  likely  that  open  revolt  would  be  spared.  The 
treaty  of  Alais  was  torn  up  ;  the  Edict  of  Nantes 
revoked  (1685).  Under  Louis  xiii.  and  Louis  xiv. 
successive  edicts  were  directed  against  theHuguenots, 
and  especially  against  their  use  of  the  Psalter.  The 
singing  of  psalms  was  prohibited  in  streets  or  shops, 
forbidden  in  private  houses,  restricted  even  in 
Protestant  temples.  As  the  seventeenth  century 
closed,  legislation  grew  more  severe  under  the  austere 
piety  of  Madame  de  Maintenon  and  the  rehgious 
zeal  of  Pere  la  Chaise.  Penal  laws  banished  Pro- 
testant pastors.  Death  was  the  penalty  for  those 
who  returned,  or  for  any  who  sheltered  them  : 
possession  of  the  heretic's  property  rewarded  those 
who  betrayed  them.  Protestant  meetings  were  pro- 
scribed ;  possessors  of  a  Protestant  Bible  or  Psalter 
were  liable  to  imprisonment  and  confiscation.     The 

15 


212  THE  HUGUENOTS,   1600-1762 

dragonnades  inflicted  untold  horrors.  A  brutal 
soldiery,  quartered  in  the  houses  of  the  Huguenots, 
was  encouraged  to  pillage,  torture,  and  outrage. 
Nor  were  the  victims  suffered  to  escape.  Guards 
were  doubled  on  the  frontiers,  and  the  peasants  were 
armed  to  assist  in  arresting  fugitives.  But  the 
Huguenot  buried  his  books  under  a  tree,  hoped  for 
better  times,  and  continued  his  psalmody  in  cave 
or  forest,  careless  that  the  sound  might  betray  him 
to  his  persecutors  or  consign  him  to  the  galle3^s. 

Even  among  the  Alps  liberty  of  singing  psalms 
was  denied.  The  Protestants  of  the  Vaudois  were 
driven  from  their  homes  and  dispossessed  of  their 
property.  The  exiles,  diminished  in  number  by  the 
hardships  of  a  winter  journey  across  the  Alps,  with 
voices  choked  by  exhaustion  and  misery,  sang 
Psalm  Ixxiv.  ("  O  God,  wherefore  art  thou  absent 
from  us  so  long  :  why  is  thy  wrath  so  hot  against 
the  sheep  of  thy  pasture?  ")  as  they  streamed  into 
Geneva,  and  the  words  were  re-echoed  by  the  crowds 
who  thronged  the  streets  of  the  City  of  Refuge, 
Three  years  later  ( 1689),  it  was  the  same  psalm  which 
was  chanted  in  triumph  by  seven  hundred  of  the 
exiles,  who,  led  by  their  pastor,  Henri  Arnaud,  had 
fought  their  way  back  to  their  homes,  "  The 
gallant  patriots  took  an  oath  of  fidelity  to  each 
other,  and  celebrated  Divine  service  in  one  of  their 
own  churches  for  the  first  time  since  their  banish- 
ment. The  enthusiasm  of  the  moment  was  in- 
expressible :  they  chanted  the  74th  Psalm  to  the 
clash  of  arms,  and  Henri  Arnaud,  mounting  the 
pulpit  with  a  sword  in  one  hand  and  a  Bible  in  the 
other,  preached  from  the  129th  Psalm,  and  once 
more  declared  in  the  face  of  heaven  that  he  would 
never  resume  his  pastoral  office  in  patience  and  peace 
until  he  should  witness  the  restoration  of  his  breth- 
ren to  their  ancient  and  rightful  settlements," 

On  the  22nd  of  October  1685,  Michel  le  TeHier, 
as  Chancellor  of  France,  set  the  seal,  almost  with  his 


PERSECUTION  OF  PROTESTANTS     213 

dying  hand,  to  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes. 
The  towns  and  villages  and  houses  of  the  Protestants 
were  pillaged  and  set  on  fire  ;  their  fields  and  vine- 
yards were  laid  waste  ;  they  were  burned  alive, 
broken  on  the  wheel,  hung  from  the  gibbet,  or  cut 
to  pieces  by  the  dragoons.  Their  midnight  assem- 
blies were  again  and  again  surprised,  and  the  most 
venerated  of  their  pastors  were  executed.  The 
victims  who  died  by  sudden  death  were  to  be  envied. 
More  terrible  still  was  the  fate  of  the  men  who  were 
chained  to  the  oar  at  the  galleys  under  the  lash  of 
barbarous  officers,  or  of  the  women  who  were 
doomed  to  perpetual  imprisonment  in  the  loath- 
some dens  of  mediaeval  cruelty,  such  as  the  Tour 
Constance  in  the  Castle  of  Aigues  Mortes,  where  the 
prisoners,  herded  together  in  dark  and  stifling 
dungeons,  were  left  a  prey  to  the  melancholy 
thoughts  that  harmonised  with  the  monotonous 
cadence  of  the  waves,  or  the  wind  moaning  over  the 
marshes . 

Among  the  rocky  savage  fastnesses  of  the 
Cevennes,  the  simple  religion  of  the  Protestant  moun- 
taineers assumed  a  stern  and  gloomy  cast.  Fervour 
easily  passed  into  fanaticism,  and  ecstasies  of  faith 
readily  lent  themselves  to  self-deception.  The 
enfants  de  Dieu,  possessed  by  hysterical  hallu- 
cinations, claimed  for  their  wild  words  a  prophetic 
inspiration.  Goaded  to  desperation  by  their  suffer- 
ings, seeing  at  every  cross-road  the  corpses  of  friends 
swinging  in  the  air,  the  peasants  were  carried  away 
by  the  fiery  appeals  of  prophets  and  prophetesses, 
who  urged  them  to  arm  against  the  enemies  of  God, 
and  fight  to  the  death  for  the  true  Church.  Upon 
their  excited  minds  the  Psalms  exercised  an  almost 
supernatural  power.  "  As  soon,"  says  Durand  Fage, 
"as  we  began  to  si  no*  the  chant  of  the  Divine 
Canticles,  we  felt  within  us  a  consuming  fire,  an 
ecstatic  desire  which  no  words  can  express.  How- 
ever great  our  fatigue,  we  thought  of  it  no  more. 


314  THE  HUGUENOTS,  1600-1762 

The  moment  the  chant  of  the  Psalms  struck  our 
ears,  we  grew  hght  as  air." 

With  such  temperaments,  it  needed  but  a  spark 
to  kindle  the  smouldering  fury  of  the  people  into  a 
flame  which  should  spread  through  the  mountains 
with  the  devastating  rapidity  of  lightning.  That 
spark  was  lighted  by  Francois  du  Chayla,  Prior  of 
Laval,  and  Inspector  of  Protestant  Missions  in  the 
district  of  Gevaudan. 

This  man  was  the  chief  agent  in  the  persecution 
of  the  Protestants  of  the  Cevennes.  His  house  at 
Pont  de  Montvert,  close  to  the  bridge  over  the 
Tarn,  vv^as  at  once  a  prison  and  a  torture-chamber, 
in  which  neither  sex  nor  age  was  spared,  and  where 
children  and  young  girls  received  no  mercy.  In  1 702 
the  Abbe  du  Chayla  held  as  prisoners  a  number  of 
Protestants  who  had  been  captured  in  an  attempted 
escape  to  Geneva.  On  the  evening  of  July  23, 
1702,  a  party  of  resolute  men,  numbering  fifty  in  all, 
goaded  by  the  appeals  of  their  prophets,  determined 
to  rescue  the  prisoners.  As  night  fell,  they  met 
under  three  gigantic  beeches  on  the  slope  of  the 
mountain  of  Bouges,  called  in  the  patois  of  the 
country  "  Alte  fage."  Some  were  armed  with 
swords,  some  with  scythes,  some  with  halberds  of 
ancient  make  :  only  a  few  carried  ^uns  or  pistols. 
Before  they  set  out  on  their  enterprise  they  prayed 
together,  and  then,  chanting  the  Psalms  of  Marot  as 
they  went,  marched  on  Pont  de  Montvert.  They 
reached  the  village  about  nine  in  the  evening,  and, 
still  singing  the  Psalms,  surrounded  the  house  of  the 
abbe. 

The  abbe  was  dining  in  company  w^ith  his  fellow- 
labourers,  when  the  rude  chant  of  the  Psalms 
reached  his  ears.  Supposing  that  the  Protestants 
had  ventured  to  hold  a  conventicle  within  earshot 
of  his  house,  he  ordered  his  guard  to  seize  the  rash 
worshippers.  But  the  house  was  surrounded  so 
that  none  could  pass  out.     On  all  sides  the  cry  was 


THE  PONT  DE  MONTVERT  215 

heard,  "  Bring  out  the  prisoners."  The  abbe,  a 
determined  man,  showed  that  he  would  yield  only 
to  force.  At  his  command  the  soldiers  fired  upon  his 
assailants,  and  one  of  the  prophets  was  killed  and 
others  of  the  party  wounded.  The  infuriated  Pro- 
testants, seizing  the  trunk  of  a  tree,  beat  down  the 
door,  swarmed  into  the  house,  and  rushed  to  the 
dungeons.  A  second  discharge  proved  fatal  to 
another  of  the  rescuing  party.  Exasperated  by  the 
sight  of  their  tortured  brethren,  and  provoked  by 
resistance,  the  C^venols  piled  together  the  furniture 
of  the  house,  raked  up  the  straw  on  which  the 
soldiers  slept,  threw  on  the  heap  the  seats  from  the 
Chapel,  and  set  the  building  on  fire.  Then  the  abbe 
and  his  friends  endeavoured  to  escape  from  the 
windows  at  the  back  of  the  house.  Tying  the  sheets 
of  their  bedding  together,  they  attempted  to  reach 
the  garden.  The  abbe  fell  and  broke  his  thigh,  but, 
crawling  into  the  bushes,  hid  himself.  Others,  more 
fortunate,  came  to  the  ground  safely,  and,  plunging 
into  the  Tarn,  escaped. 

As  the  fire  gathered  fierceness  and  caught  hold 
of  the  timber  of  the  house,  the  glare  of  the  flames 
revealed  the  lurking-place  of  the  abbe.  His  cry 
for  mercy  was  mocked.  Dragged  into  the  open,  he 
was  killed.  Each  succ,essive  assailant  as  he  de- 
livered his  blow,  cried  out  that  it  was  in  vengeance. 
"  Take  that,"  cried  one,  "  for  my  father's  sake, 
whom  you  broke  on  the  wheel."  "  Take  that," 
cried  another,  "  for  my  brother,  whom  you  sent  to 
the  galleys."  "  And  that,"  shouted  a  third,  "for 
my  mother,  whom  you  killed  with  grief."  Fifty- 
two  wounds  were  found  on  his  body,  of  which 
twenty-five  were  mortal.  Only  two  persons  dis- 
covered in  the  house  were  spared.  All  the  livelong 
night,  amid  the  crash  of  falling  timbers,  and  the 
roar  and  hiss  of  flames,  which  drowned  the  murmur 
of  the  Tarn,  the  dehverers  chanted  their  Psalms  in 
wild  ecstasy  of  vengeance,  and,  as  the  day  dawned, 


2i6  THE  HUGUENOTS,  1600-1762 

it  was  with  a  psalm  of  triumph  that  they  withdrew 
with  their  rescued  brethren  to  their  mountain 
fastnesses. 

With  this  ferocious  act  of  vengeance  began  the 
war  of  the  Cevennes,  in  which,  with  the  Psalms  for 
their  battle-cry,  a  handful  of  peasants  defied  the 
armies  of  Louis  xiv.,  defeated  his  most  skilful 
marshals,  and  negotiated  on  equal  terms  with  the 
Grand  Monarque  himself. 

On  Sunday,  December  24,  1702,  Jean  Cavalier 
had  assembled  eighty  of  his  followers  for  worship 
on  Christmas  Eve.  The  service  had  barely  begun 
when  his  sentinels,  posted  on  the  hills,  gave  the 
alarm.  The  commandant  of  Alais,  with  six  hundred 
foot-soldiers  and  fifty  mounted  gentry,  was  upon 
them.  It  was  with  a  psalm  that  the  Camisards 
attacked  their  assailants,  routed  them,  and  pursued 
the  fugitives  up  to  the  gates  of  Alais. 

Four  months  later,  April  1703,  Cavalier  and  his 
band  bivouacked  in  a  deserted  farmhouse  called 
Bellot,  near  Alais.  Built  on  the  ruins  of  a  feudal 
castle,  the  house  was  surmounted  by  a  tower 
and  surrounded  by  a  wall  and  deep  ditch.  At 
midnight  a  traitor  led  the  soldiers  to  the  spot. 
Four  thousand  royalists  surprised  four  hundred 
sleeping  Camisards.  Cavalier  escaped  along  the 
moat,  and  after  a  vain  attempt  to  rescue  those  who 
were  hemmed  in  within  the  enclosure,  drew  off 
a  portion  of  his  men  under  the  cover  of  darkness. 
From  midnight  till  eight  the  next  morning  the 
defenders  of  Bellot  held  their  own.  Their  ammuni- 
tion was  spent ;  but,  refusing  to  yield,  they  perished 
to  a  man  in  the  blazing  ruins,  still  raising  with  their 
latest  breath  the  words  of  their  beloved  Psalms. 

The  Psalms  were  again  the  battle-cry  of  the 
Huguenots  at  Les  Devois  de  Martignargues,  where, 
in  March  1704,  Cavalier  won  a  brilliant  victory. 
The  royalist  general.  La  Jonquierc,  with  a  con- 
siderable  number   of  foot-soldiers,   dragoons,   and 


VICTORIES  OF  THE  CAMISARDS       217 

grenadiers,  had  pursued  the  Camisards  from 
Moussac  to  Brignon,  and  thence  higher  up  the 
mountains  to  the  bleak  uninhabited  spot  which 
was  the  final  scene  of  the  conflict.  There  Cavalier 
determined  to  make  his  stand.  After  praying 
with  his  men,  he  took  up  a  strong  position,  posting 
an  ambuscade  to  his  left  and  right.  La  Jonquiere 
led  his  men  to  the  attack.  The  Camisards  lay 
down  till  the  royalists  had  discharged  their  pieces. 
Then,  springing  to  their  feet,  and  thundering 
out  the  Psalms,  they  charged  the  enemy,  while 
at  the  same  moment  the  men  in  ambush  attacked 
on  both  flanks.  The  royalists  broke  and  fled,  the 
victorious  Camisards  in  hot  and  merciless  pursuit. 

It  was  with  the  Psalms  that  Roland,  another  of 
the  Camisard  leaders,  routed  the  royalists  at  the 
Bridge  of  Salindres,  in  the  spring  of  1709.  In 
pursuit  of  Cavalier,  the  Marquis  de  Lalande,  one 
of  the  greatest  coxcombs  of  the  day,  but  an  experi- 
enced soldier,  had  reached  Anduze.  There  two 
peasants  were  introduced  into  his  presence  to  tell 
him  that  Roland  was  about  to  seize  the  Bridge  of 
Salindres,  over  the  river  Gardon.  The  men  were 
in  truth  emissaries  of  the  Camisard  chief.  Lalande 
fell  into  the  trap.  Acting  on  their  information, 
he  determined  to  seize  the  Bridge.  To  reach  it,  he 
had  to  penetrate  a  narrow,  winding  pass.  On  one 
side  rose  bare  precipitous  cliffs  ;  on  the  other  ran 
a  deep  ravine,  at  the  bottom  of  which  seethed 
the  mountain  torrent  of  the  Gardon.  At  the 
entrance  of  the  gorge,  Roland  had  concealed  a 
body  of  his  troops  ;  on  the  rocks  above,  he  had 
stationed  another  band  ;  he  himself,  with  a  third 
company,  held  the  Bridge  of  Salindres.  Lalande, 
suspecting  nothing,  entered  the  ravine.  When 
he  had  entangled  himself  in  its  narrow  windings,  a 
signal  was  given,  and  he  found  himself  attacked 
in  front  and  rear,  while  enormous  rocks,  hurled 
from  the  cliffs  above,  swept  his  men  by  files  at  a  time 


31 8  THE  HUGUENOTS,  1 600-1 762 

into  the  river.  Above  the  rattle  of  the  musketry, 
the  crash  of  the  falhng  rocks,  and  the  confused 
cries  of  the  soldiers,  was  heard  the  triumphant 
psalm  of  the  Camisards.  The  whole  army  seemed 
doomed  to  perish.  One  path  alone  had  not  been 
occupied  by  the  mountaineers  ;  it  descended  the 
side  of  the  ravine,  and  crossed  the  Gardon  by  a 
mill-dam.  Down  this  path  of  safety  rushed 
Lalande  with  a  few  of  his  followers,  so  hotly 
pursued  that  he  left  his  plumed  hat  behind  him, 
and  escaped  with  his  wig  in  flames.  As  evening 
fell,  the  din  of  battle  ceased.  In  the  quiet  valley, 
whose  silence  was  only  broken  by  the  roar  of  the 
Gardon,  rose  the  48th  Psalm  : 

"  Dieu  aux  palais  d'elle  est  cognu 
Et  pour  sa  defense  tenu,"  etc. 

As  the  uneven  war  dragged  on, — as,  time  after 
time,  at  unequal  odds,  the  king's  troops  were 
defeated, — as  the  mountaineers  held  their  own 
against  trained  soldiers  and  experienced  generals, 
they  grew  strong  in  the  conviction  that  God  was 
on  their  side.  "  Our  enemy,"  says  Mazel,  one  of 
the  Camisard  historians,  "  were  more  in  number 
than  the  sand  (Ps.  cxxxix.,  verse  18),  and  we  w^re 
but  a  little  company.  They  had  horses,  and  chariots, 
and  gold,  and  weapons,  and  castles.  We  had  no  such 
aid,  but  the  Lord  God  of  Hosts  was  our  strength." 

The  same  serene  confidence  which  had  nerved 
the  arms  of  the  Camisards,  inspired  the  quiet 
heroism  of  the  Protestant  "  Pastors  of  the  Desert," 
who,  in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
braved  danger  and  death  to  carry  on  their  pro- 
scribed ministrations.  In  the  long  list  of  executions, 
there  are  but  few  victims  who  were  not  sustained 
in  their  last  hours  by  the  words  of  the  Psalms. 

In  1745,  Louis  Rang,  the  brother  of  a  minister 
who  only  saved  himself  from  the  scaffold  by  flight, 
a  young   man  of    twenty-five    years  of    age,  and 


RANG  AND  ROGER  219 

himself  a  minister  of  the  Protestant  religion,  was 
arrested  at  Livron.  He  was  thrown  into  prison 
at  Valence,  and  condemned  to  die  at  Grenoble, 
March  2,  1745.  In  vain  the  President  of  the 
Court  had  offered  him  his  life  if  he  would  abjure 
his  faith.  He  rejected  all  offers.  His  sentence 
was  that  he  should  be  hung  in  the  market-place 
at  Die,  and  that  his  head  should  be  severed  from 
his  body  and  exposed  on  a  gibbet  opposite  the 
little  inn  at  Livron,  where  he  had  been  arrested. 
On  his  way  to  the  scaffold,  he  sang  verse  24  of 
Psalm  cxviii.  : 

"  La  voici  I'heureuse  journee 
Qui  repond  a  notre  desir  ; 
Louons  Dieu,  qui  nous  I'a  donnee ; 
Faisons  en  tout  notre  plaisir." 

His  voice  was  drowned  by  the  roll  of  drums. 
With  his  eyes  raised  to  heaven,  he  reached  the 
foot  of  the  scaffold,  fell  on  his  knees  in  prayer, 
then  mounted  the  ladder  and  met  his  death. 

A  few  weeks  later,  Jacques  Roger,  a  venerable 
man  of  seventy  years  of  age,  forty  of  which  he  had 
spent  as  a  Protestant  pastor,  was  betrayed  to  the 
Government  and  arrested.  Ordained  at  Wiirtem- 
burg,  and  therefore  one  of  the  few  regularly 
ordained  ministers,  he  had  braved  the  law  which 
made  it  a  capital  offence  to  return  to  France.  For 
forty  years  he  had  escaped,  often  by  a  hair's 
breadth,  the  pursuit  of  the  soldiers,  who  had 
tracked  him  like  a  wild  beast.  The  officer  in 
command  asked  him  who  he  was.  "  I  am  he,"  he 
replied,  "  whom  you  have  sought  for  thirty-nine 
years  ;  it  was  time  that  you  should  find  me." 
Condemned  to  death  at  Grenoble,  he  spent  his 
last  hours  in  encouraging  some  Protestant  prisoners 
to  be  true  to  their  faith.  When  the  executioner 
and  his  assistants  arrived  to  take  him  to  the  place 
of  execution,  he  received  the  summons  cheerfully, 
quoting  the  same  verse  which  Louis  Rang  had  sung 


220  THE  HUGUENOTS,  1600-1762 

on  the  scaffold  (Ps.  cxviii.,  verse  24).  From  prison 
he  went  to  his  death  chanting  Psalm  li. 

The  same  Psalm  (li.)  was  sung,  on  his  way  to 
execution,  by  Fran(;ois  Benezet,  a  young  man  who 
was  studying  for  Holy  Orders  He  was  executed 
in  January  1752,  on  the  esplanade  at  Montpellier. 
His  youth,  his  courage,  and  the  fact  that  he  left  a 
widow  and  child,  created  a  profound  impression 
among  his  co-religionists.  His  fate  is  commemo- 
rated in  one  of  the  rude  popular  songs  which, 
through  their  uncouth  stanzas,  breathe  the  fervent 
piety  and  indomitable  resolution  of  the  Protestants. 

The  last  of  the  martyred  Pastors  of  the  Desert 
was  Frangois  Rochette,  who,  in  1760,  had  been 
consecrated  pastor  at  the  provincial  synod  of  Haut 
Languedoc.  In  the  district  of  Quergy  he  spent 
some  laborious  months,  preaching,  administering 
the  Communion,  visiting  the  sick,  teaching  the 
young,  celebrating  marriages,  baptisms,  and  funerals 
for  the  twenty-five  Reformed  churches  which  fell 
to  his  charge.  His  health  being  injured  b}^  his 
incessant  labours,  he  left  Montauban,  in  September 
1 76 1,  to  drink  the  waters  at  St.  Antonin.  On  his 
way  through  Caussade,  he  was  asked  to  baptize 
a  child.  It  was  midnight,  and,  not  knowing  his  way, 
he  sent  his  guides  into  the  town  to  find  a  native 
of  the  place  who  would  take  him  to  the  house 
where  his  services  were  required.  As  the  guides 
were  returning  to  the  pastor,  they  endeavoured  to 
evade  observation  by  leaving  the  main  road. 
Some  passers-by,  catching  sight  of  them,  mistook 
them  for  robbers  who  infested  the  neighbourhood, 
and  sent  the  town-guard  in  pursuit  of  them.  They 
were  seized  by  the  patrol,  and  with  them  Rochette. 
Taken  before  the  magistrates,  Rochette  boldly 
avowed  his  calling,  and  was  committed  to  prison. 

The  excitable  populace  of  the  South  were  aroused. 
Believing  that  a  plot  was  on  foot  among  the  Pro- 
testants to  pillage  the  town,  they  rang  the  tocsin. 


THE  LAST  MARTYR,   1762  221 

donned  the  white  cockades  of  St.  Bartholomew's 
Day,  and  attacked  the  heretics.  The  Protestants, 
on  their  side,  armed  themselves,  and  a  bloody 
conflict  seemed  imminent.  Though  the  outbreak 
was  prevented,  the  affair  sealed  the  fate  of  Rochette 
and  his  companions.  Petitions  were  presented 
to  the  Due  de  Richelieu,  and  to  Marie  Adelaide, 
Princess  of  France,  the  daughter  of  Louis  xv.,  who 
had  shown  herself  inclined  to  mercy.  All  was  in 
vain.  Rochette  was  tried  at  Toulouse  in  November 
1761  ;  in  the  following  February  the  sentence  of 
death  was  pronounced.  He  was  offered  his  life 
if  he  would  abjure  his  faith.  He  refused,  and, 
on  February  20,  1762,  the  sentence  was  executed. 
To  the  last,  Rochette  encouraged  his  companions. 
Through  the  crowded  streets,  thronged  with 
spectators,  the  car  was  drawn  to  the  place  of  exe- 
cution in  the  Place  du  Salin.  Rochette  mounted 
the  scaffold  with  a  firm  step,  chanting  as  he  went, 
"  La  voici  I'heureuse  journee,"  etc.  (Ps.  cxviii., 
verse  24,  "  This  is  the  day  which  the  Lord  hath 
made,"  etc.). 

It  was  fitting  that  the  last  words  of  the  last  Pro- 
testant martyr  should  be  taken  from  that  Book  of 
Psalms  which,  through  two  centuries  of  conflict 
and  persecution,  had  meant  so  much  to  the  Hugue- 
nots. "  It  was,"  said  Florimond  de  Remond, 
"  the  Book  of  Psalms  which  fostered  the  austere 
morals  of  the  Huguenots,  and  cultivated  those 
masculine  virtues  that  made  them  the  pick  of  the 
nation.  It  was  that  book  which  supported  fainting 
courage,  uplifted  downcast  souls,  inspired  heroic 
devotion.  Their  affirmations  were  certes  or  en 
verite  ;  they  were  enemies  of  luxury  and  worldly 
follies  ;  they  loved  the  Bible  or  the  singing  of 
spiritual  songs  and  psalms  better  than  dances  and 
hautboys.  Their  women  wore  sober  colours,  and 
in  public  appeared  as  mourning  Eves  or  penitent 
Magdalens  ;    their  men,  habitually  denying  them- 


322  THE  HUGUENOTS,  1600-1762 

selves,  seemed  struck  by  the  Holy  Spirit."  Nor 
was  it  only  their  virtues  which  the  Psalms  had 
fostered.  From  the  same  book  they  justified  their 
ferocity.  To  them  Rome  was  Babylon,  and  the 
Reformed  Church  was  Sion.  Their  enemies  were 
God's  enemies.  They  were  His  appointed  instru- 
ments of  vengeance,  and  they  made  war  in  the 
spirit  of  Calvin's  commentary  on  Psalm  cxxxvii., 
verses  8,  9,  and  of  his  defence  of  its  imprecations 
on  the  women  and  children  of  their  foes. 


CHAPTER    IX 
The  Puritans,  1600-60 

The  Pilgrim  Fathers  and  Benjamin  Frankhn  ;  the  Psalms  among 
the  royalists— Jeremy  Taylor,  Bishop  Sanderson,  Strafford,  and 
Laud  :  the  Civil  War — Marston  Moor,  John  Hampden,  Charles  i. 
at  Newark  :  Puritanism  as  a  poetical,  religious,  and  political 
force  in  Milton,  Bunyan,  and  Cromwell. 

TO  the  Puritans  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the 
Psalter  was  the  book  of  books.  Psalms 
were  sung  at  Lord  Mayors'  feasts,  at  City  banquets. 
If  the  clown  in  the  Winter's  Tale  (Act  iv.,  sc.  2)  be 
accepted  as  a  witness,  they  were  sung  to  "  horn- 
pipes "  at  rustic  festivals.  Soldiers  sang  them  on 
the  march,  by  the  camp  fire,  on  parade,  in  the  storm 
of  battle.  The  ploughman  carolled  them  over  his 
furrow  ;  the  carter  hummed  them  by  the  side  of 
his  waggon.  They  were  the  song-book  of  ladies 
and  their  lovers,  and,  under  the  Commonwealth, 
the  strains  of  the  Psalms  floated  from  windows  in 
every  street  of  Puritan  strongholds. 

To  gain  liberty  of  worship  and  of  psalm-singing, 
men  and  women  crossed  the  seas,  seeking  in  the 
New  World  the  freedom  that  was  denied  them  in 
the  Old.  With  this  object  the  little  congregation 
of  Separatists,  which  gathered  at  Scrooby  in 
Nottinghamshire,  made  their  way  in  1608  to  the 
East  Coast,  and  thence  to  the  Low  Countries.  For 
twelve  years  they  made  the  "  goodly  and  pleasant 
city  "  of  Leyden  their  "  resting-place."  But  in 
July  1620,  the  Speedwell,  a  vessel  of  sixty  tons 
burden,    lay   at    Delft    Haven   equipped    for   their 


224  THE  PURITANS,  1600-60 

transport  to  the  New  World.  "  When,"  saj'-s 
Winslow,  "  the  ship  was  ready  to  carry  us  away, 
the  brethren  that  stayed  having  again  solemnly 
sought  the  Lord  with  us  and  for  us,  they  that  stayed 
at  Le^^den  feasted  us  that  were  to  go,  at  our 
pastor's  house,  being  large,  where  we  refreshed 
ourselves,  after  tears,  with  singing  of  psalms,  making 
joyful  melody  in  our  hearts  as  well  as  with  the 
voice,  there  being  many  of  the  congregation  very 
expert  in  music.  And  indeed  it  was  the  sweetest 
melody  that  ever  mine  ears  heard." 

To  the  singing  of  psalms  the  sails  of  the  May- 
flower were  set  to  catch  the  winds  that  wafted  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers  to  the  white  sandbanks  of  Cape 
Cod  ;  to  their  music  were  laid  the  foundations  of  the 
United  States  of  America.  "  At  Salem  is  his 
tabernacle  "  (Ps.  Ixxvi.,  verse  2),  were  the  words 
which  suggested  to  John  Endicott's  company  the 
name  of  their  first  settlement.  The  denial  of  the 
liberty  of  "  singing  psalms  and  praying  without 
a  book,"  drove  Francis  Higginson,  the  first  ap- 
pointed teacher  at  Salem,  to  exchange  the  Old 
World  for  the  New.  At  the  Sabbath  services,  both 
in  Salem  and  in  Plymouth,  the  Psalms  were  sung 
without  music,  from  the  version  of  Henry  Ains- 
worth  of  Amsterdam.  But  it  was  not  long  before 
the  Puritan  divines  had  prepared  their  own  version, 
and  the  third  book  printed  in  America  was  the  Bay 
Psalm  Book  (1639-40).  Till  the  end  of  the  eight- 
eenth century,  the  Psalms  were  exclusively  sung 
in  the  churches  and  chapels  of  America.  In  the 
language  of  the  Psalms  the  early  progress  of  the  first 
colony  is  recorded.  "  The  Lord,"  says  Johnson  in 
his  Wonder-Working  Providence,  "  whose  promises 
are  large  to  His  Sion,  hath  blest  His  people's  pro- 
vision, and  satisfied  her  poor  with  bread,  in  a  very 
little  space."  The  Psalms  were  the  chief  instru- 
ment of  Eliot  in  his  missionary  enterprises  among 
the  Red   Indians.     From  the   Psalms,  Eliot's  sue- 


BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  225 

cesser,  David  Brainerd,  drew  the  language  in  which 
he  clothed  his  daily  thoughts.  In  versifying  the 
Psalms,  the  early  poets  of  the  young  Republic,  such 
as  Barlow,  D wight,  or  Bryant,  exercised  their 
powers.  In  the  same  task.  Cotton  Mather  had 
previously  found  respite  from  his  dark  musings 
on  the  mA^steries  of  the  unseen  world.  In  the 
Psalms  was  laid  the  coping-stone  of  American 
independence.  In  1787,  it  was  to  the  first  verse  of 
Psalm  cxxvii.  that  Benjamin  Franklin  appealed, 
when  speaking  before  the  Convention  assembled 
to  frame  a  Constitution  for  the  United  States  of 
America  : — 

"  In  the  beginning  of  the  contest  with  Britain, 
when  we  were  sensible  of  danger,  we  had  daily 
prayers  in  this  room  for  the  Divine  protection. 
Our  prayers.  Sir,  were  heard,  and  they  were  gra- 
ciously answered .  All  of  us  who  were  engaged  in  the 
struggle  must  have  observed  frequent  instances  of 
a  superintending  Providence.  To  that  kind  Pro- 
vidence we  owe  this  opportunity  of  consulting 
in  peace  on  the  means  of  establishing  our  future 
national  felicity.  And  have  we  now  forgotten  this 
powerful  Friend  ?  or  do  we  imagine  that  we  no 
longer  need  His  assistance  ?  I  have  lived  for  a  long 
time  (81  years),  and  the  longer  I  live  the  more  con- 
vincing proof  I  see  of  this  truth,  that  God  governs  in 
the  affairs  of  men.  And  if  a  sparrow  cannot  fall  to 
the  ground  without  His  notice,  is  it  probable  that 
an  empire  can  rise  without  His  aid  ?  We  have 
been  assured.  Sir,  in  the  sacred  wTJtings,  that 
'  Except  the  Lord  build  the  house,  they  labour  in 
vain  that  build  it.'  I  firmly  believe  this,  and  I  also 
believe  that  without  His  concurring  aid  we  shall 
proceed  in  this  political  building  no  better  than  the 
builders  of  Babel.  I  therefore  beg  leave  to  move 
that,  henceforth,  prayers,  imploring  the  assistance 
of  Heaven  and  its  blessing  on  our  deliberations,  be 
held   in   this   assembly   every   monring   before   we 


326  THE  PURITANS,  1600-60 

proceed  to  business,  and  that  one  or  more  of  the 
clergy  of  this  city  be  requested  to  officiate  in  that 
service."  i'  h-^ 

In  the  spirit  of  the  Psalms,  as  they  interpreted 
them,  the  brethren  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  the 
Puritans  who  remained  behind  in  England,  fought 
out  their  quarrel  with  Charles  i.  But  the  Psalter 
was  not  the  peculiar  property  of  the  Parliamentary 
party.  Charles  i.  himself  caused  his  father's 
version  of  the  Psalms  to  be  printed.  From  Psalm 
Ixxxii.,  verse  i  ("  God  standeth  in  the  congregation 
of  princes  ;  he  is  a  Judge  among  gods  "),  Bishop 
Andrewes  had  silently  protested  against  the  intrusion 
of  churchmen  into  secular  affairs.  From  another 
Psalm  (Psalm  Ix.,  verse  2,  "  Thou  hast  moved  the 
land,  and  divided  it  :  heal  the  sores  thereof,  for  it 
shaketh  "),  Bishop  Hall  appealed  for  peace,  in  the 
Lent  sermon  which  he  preached  in  1641  before 
Charles  i.  at  Whitehall.  To  Anglican  divines,  as 
well  as  to  Puritan  preachers,  the  Psalter  was  as 
"  the  balm  of  Gilead."  Jeremy  Taylor  (1613-67), 
who  acted  as  chaplain  in  the  army  of  Charles  i., 
suffered  both  in  person  and  in  purse  for  his  loyalty 
to  Church  and  King.  Of  "  liberty  of  prophesying  " 
he  was  an  assailant,  of  the  Church's  Liturgy  a 
champion.  But,  in  the  midst  of  his  persecution 
and  troubles,  it  is  in  the  Psalms  that  he  finds  con- 
solation. "  When  I  came,"  he  writes,  "  to  look 
upon  the  Psalter  with  a  nearer  observation,  ...  I 
found  so  many  admirable  promises,  so  rare  variety 
of  the  expressions  of  the  mercy  of  God,  so  many 
consolatory  hymns,  the  commemoration  of  so  many 
deliverances  from  dangers  and  deaths  and  enemies, 
so  many  miracles  of  mercy  and  salvation,  that  I 
began  to  be  so  confident  as  to  believe  there  would 
come  no  affliction  great  enough  to  spend  so  great  a 
stock  of  comfort  as  was  laid  up  in  the  treasury  of 
the  Psalter."  In  the  Rule  and  Exercises  of  Holy 
Living  and   of  Holy  Dying,  he   teaches   from   ex- 


JEREMY  TAYLOR  227 

perience.  His  gorgeous,  richly-tinted  prose  differs 
absolutely  from  the  homely  English  of  Bunyan. 
It  winds  its  devious  way  along  like  some  Roman 
triumph,  laden  with  the  captives  and  the  spoils 
of  other  languages  and  literatures.  Yet,  when 
Taylor  comes  to  the  practical  aids  of  holy  life  or 
death,  it  is  on  the  Psalms  that  he  almost  exclusively 
relies.  From  the  Psalter  are  drawn  his  prayers, 
ejaculations,  and  devotional  forms  of  preparation, 
alike  in  health  or  old  age,  by  day  or  at  night,  in 
sickness  or  at  the  moment  of  death. 

Another  peaceful  yet  shining  light  of  the  Church 
during  the  Civil  Wars,  was  Robert  Sanderson  (1587- 
1662),  who  at  the  Restoration  was  consecrated 
Bishop  of  Lincoln,  and  has  left  his  mark  on  the 
history  of  the  Common  Prayer  Book.  By  the 
Parliamentarians  he  was  ejected  from  his  professor- 
ship at  Oxford,  and  imprisoned.  But  his  sorrows 
deepened  and  enlarged  his  love  of  the  Psalter — 
"  the  treasury,"  as  he  told  Izaak  Walton,  "  of 
Christian  comfort,  fitted  for  all  persons  and  all 
necessities  ;  able  to  raise  the  soul  from  dejection 
by  the  frequent  mention  of  God's  mercies  to  repent- 
ant sinners  ;  to  stir  up  holy  desires  ;  to  increase 
joy  ;  to  moderate  sorrow  ;  to  nourish  hope,  and 
teach  us  patience,  by  waiting  God's  leisure  ;  to 
beget  a  trust  in  the  mercy,  power,  and  providence 
of  our  Creator  ;  and  to  cause  a  resignation  of  our- 
selves to  His  will  :  and  then,  and  not  till  then, 
to  believe  ourselves  happy."  He  added,  that,  by 
the  frequent  use  of  the  Psalms,  "  they  would  not 
only  prove  to  be  our  souls'  comfort,  but  would 
become  so  habitual,  as  to  transform  them  into  the 
image  of  his  soul  that  composed  them."  He  him- 
self used  them  constantly.  "  As  the  holy  Psalmist 
said,"  writes  Walton,  "  that  his  eyes  should  prevent 
both  the  dawning  of  the  day  and  the  night  watches,  by 
meditating  on  God's  Word  (Ps.  cxix.,  verse  148),  so 
it  was  Dr.  Sanderson's  constant  practice  every 
16 


228  THE  PURITANS,  1600-60 

morning  to  entertain  his  first  waking  thoughts  with 
a  repetition  of  those  very  psalms  that  the  Church 
hath  appointed  to  be  constantly  read  in  the  daily 
morning  service  ;  and  having  at  night  laid  him  in 
his  bed,  he  as  constantly  closed  his  eyes  with  a 
repetition  of  those  appointed  for  the  service  of  the 
evening,  remembering  and  repeating  the  very 
psalms  appointed  for  every  day."  On  the  day 
before  his  death,  he  desired  his  chaplain  to  give  him 
absolution.  "  After  this  desire  of  his  was  satisfied, 
his  body  seemed  to  be  more  at  ease,  and  his  mind 
more  cheerful  ;  and  he  said ,  Lord ,  forsake  me  not  now 
my  strength  faileth  me  (Ps.  Ixxi.,  verse  8)  ;  but  con- 
tinue Thy  mercy,  and  let  my  mouth  be  filled  with  Thy 
praise.  He  continued  the  remaining  night  and  day 
very  patient,  and  to  himself  during  that  time  did 
often  say  the  103rd  Psalm,  and  very  often  these 
words,  Aly  heart  is  fixed,  O  God  ;  my  heart  is  fixed 
where  true  joy  is  to  be  found  "  (Ps.  Ivii.,  verse  8). 
"  Thus,"  continues  Walton,  in  the  conclusion  of  one 
of  the  most  charming  of  his  biographies,  "  this 
pattern  of  meekness  and  primitive  innocence 
changed  this  for  a  better  life.  It  is  now  too  late  to 
wish  that  my  life  may  be  like  his  ;  for  I  am  in  the 
eighty-fifth  year  of  my  age  ;  but  I  humbly  beseech 
Almighty  God,  that  my  death  ma}'  ;  and  do  as 
earnestly  beg  .  .  .  any  reader  ...  to  say  Amen. 
Blessed  is  the  man  in  whose  spirit  there  is  no  guile  " 
(Ps.  xxxii.,  verse  2). 

In  love  of  the  Psalter,  Anglican  and  Independent, 
Cavalier  and  Roundhead,  might  be  united.  In  all 
else  they  were  bitterly  opposed.  Even  before  the 
execution  of  the  Earl  of  Strafford  and  of  Laud,  men 
recognised  that  an  appeal  to  arms  was  almost  in- 
evitable. Yet  it  was  to  the  Psalms  that  those  two 
ministers,  whom  the  people  held  directly  respon- 
sible for  the  king's  most  oppressive  acts,  appealed 
in  the  moment  of  their  death. 

In  November  1640,  Thomas  Wentworth,  Earl  of 


THE  EARL  OF  STRAFFORD  229 

Strafford,  had  been  committed  to  the  Tower.  It 
was  not  till  five  months  later  that  his  trial  began. 
During  that  interval,  the  feeling  against  him  grew 
every  day  more  bitter.  "  Black  Tom  Tyrant  " 
was  hated  by  his  former  colleagues  in  the  House  of 
Commons  as  an  apostate  from  the  popular  cause. 
Stronger  than  desire  for  vengeance  or  personal  dis- 
like was  the  fear  with  which  his  commanding 
ability  and  indomitable  will  inspired  his  opponents. 
Vague  forebodings  of  violence,  rumours  of  popish 
plots,  suspicion  of  the  king's  purpose,  were  whis- 
pered in  the  House  of  Commons.  Nothing  is  more 
cruel  than  a  panic  ;  as  long  as  Strafford  lived,  men 
felt  their  own  lives  and  liberties  to  be  in  peril. 
"  Stone  dead  hath  no  fellow,"  and  his  punishment 
was  demanded  as  a  protection  against  a  public 
enemy.  Strafford  knew  his  danger  when  he 
obeyed  Charles's  summons  and  came  from  York- 
shire to  London.  But  he  had  the  king's  assurance 
that  he  should  suffer  neither  in  his  person,  nor  in 
his  honour,  nor  in  his  estate.  On  this  explicit 
promise  he  relied.  Even  after  his  committal  to  the 
Tower,  he  had  written  to  his  wife,  bidding  her  keep 
up  her  heart.  "  I  am,"  he  said,  "  in  great  inward 
quietness  and  a  strong  belief  that  God  will  deliver 
me  out  of  all  these  troubles." 

On  March  22,  1641,  the  trial  had  begun.  In  the 
centre  of  Westminster  Hall  was  raised  a  stage,  taking 
up  the  whole  breadth  of  the  building  from  wall  to 
wall,  and  about  a  third  part  of  the  length.  At  the 
north  end  was  set  a  throne  of  state  for  the  king, 
and  a  chair  for  the  prince.  These  stood  empty  ; 
but  on  either  side  of  the  throne  was  a  gallery,  on 
one  side  of  which  sat  the  king  and  queen.  Princess 
Mary,  the  Prince  Elector,  and  some  ladies  of  the 
Court,  and  on  the  other  side  various  French  nobles. 
In  front  of  the  throne  sat  the  Earl  of  Arundel,  who 
acted  as  Speaker.  Below  him  were  seats  for  the 
judges,  and  a  little  table  at  which  were  the  black- 


230  THE  PURITANS,   1600-60 

gowned  clerks  of  the  House.  On  forms,  covered 
with  red  cloth,  sat  the  Peers,  in  their  red  and  ermine 
robes.  On  either  side  of  the  Hall,  along  its  east  and 
west  walls,  and  at  its  southern  end,  were  ranged 
stages  of  forms,  on  which  sat  the  members  of  the 
House  of  Commons  and  spectators.  Above  the 
highest  stage  of  forms  were  boxes  crowded  with 
ladies. 

At  eight  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  March  22,  the 
Earl  of  Strafford,  dressed  in  a  black  habit,  and  wear- 
ing his  George,  was  brought  in,  in  custody  of  the 
Lieutenant  of  the  Tower.  His  crisp  dark  hair  was 
turning  grey,  and  his  figure  stooped  slightly  from 
recent  illness.  He  took  his  place  at  the  bar,  with 
his  secretaries  behind  him,  and  on  a  level  with  him 
were  the  eight  managers  who  conducted  the  case 
for  the  House  of  Commons.  Hour  after  hour  he 
stood  at  bay.  Every  morning  those  who  wished 
for  seats  were  in  the  Hall  by  five  ;  the  king  arrived 
at  half-past  seven  ;  the  Lords  took  their  seats,  with 
heads  covered,  at  eight,  and  continued  sitting  till 
four  in  the  afternoon.  When  Strafford  was  pre- 
paring his  replies  to  special  points  in  the  indictment, 
the  Lords  rose  from  their  seats,  talked  and  clattered 
about  ;  the  members  of  the  House  of  Commons 
discussed  the  progress  of  the  trial  ;  "  bread  and 
flesh  "  were  eaten,  "  bottles  of  beer  and  wine  going 
thick  from  mouth  to  mouth  without  cups."  Some- 
times the  speeches  were  hissed  ;  at  other  times  a 
deep  hum  marked  the  approval  of  the  audience  ; 
and  Strafford,  as  Baillie,  his  enemy,  remarked,  daily 
gained  the  affections  of  the  ladies  by  his  eloquence 
and  address. 

On  April  13,  he  made  his  defence  against  the 
whole  charge  of  treason.  It  was  evident  that  he 
was  likely  to  escape.  The  Commons  therefore 
determined  to  proceed  by  a  Bill  of  Attainder,  and 
to  vote  him  a  traitor.  The  Bill  was  read  a  third 
time  in  the  Lower  House  on  April  21,  and  in  the 


STRAFFORD  DESERTED  231 

Upper  House  on  May  8.  Would  the  king  accept 
or  reject  it  ?  Four  days  before  the  third  reading, 
Strafford  wrote  a  letter  to  Charles,  "  to  set  "  the 
king's  "  conscience  at  liberty."  "  My  consent,"  he 
says,  "  shall  more  acquit  you  herein  to  God  than 
all  the  world  can  do  besides.  To  a  willing  man 
there  is  no  injury  done  :  and  as,  by  God's  grace, 
I  forgive  all  the  world,  with  calmness  and  meekness 
of  infinite  contentment  to  my  dislodging  soul,  so, 
vSir,  I  can  give  to  you  the  life  of  this  world  with  all 
the  cheerfulness  imaginable,  in  the  just  acknowledg- 
ment of  your  exceeding  favours." 

The  king  delayed  his  assent  to  the  attainder.  All 
Sunday,  May  9,  an  armed  mob  paraded  the  streets 
and  threatened  an  attack  on  Whitehall.  At  length, 
late  in  the  evening,  Charles  yielded.  "  My  lord  of 
Strafford's  condition,"  he  said,  as  he  signed  his  name 
to  a  commission  charged  to  give  his  assent,  "  is 
more  happy  than  mine."  On  Tuesday  morning 
he  made  a  final  appeal  to  the  Lords  to  commute 
Strafford's  sentence  to  one  of  imprisonment.  "  But 
if,"  he  adds,  "  no  less  than  his  life  can  satisfy  my 
people,  I  must  say  Fiat  justitia."  Then  follows  the 
postscript,  "  If  he  must  die,  it  were  a  charity  to 
reprieve  him  to  Saturday." 

His  weak  appeal  was  made  in  vain.  The  next 
day.  May  12,  1641,  Strafford  met  his  death 
courageously  on  Tower  Hill.  The  news  that  Charles 
had  deserted  him  had  come  to  him  with  the  shock 
of  surprise.  Perhaps  he  may  have  relied  to  the  last 
on  the  king's  promise.  It  is  thus  that  a  poet  has 
represented  him  turning  to  the  messenger  of  his  fate  : 

"  See  this  paper,  warm — feel — warm 
With  lying  next  my  heart  !     Whose  hand  is  there  ? 
Whose  promise  ?     Read,  and  loud  for  God  to  hear ! 
'  Strafford  shall  take  no  hurt  ' — read  it,  I  say  ! 
'  In  person,  honour,  nor  estate.'  " 

But  if  such  thoughts  were  in  his  mind,  it  was  to 
the  Psalms  that,  in  bitterness  of  spirit,  he  turned 


232  THE  PURITANS,  1600-60 

for  their  expression  :  "  O  put  not  your  trust  in 
princes,  nor  in  any  child  of  man  ;  for  there  is  no 
help  in  them  "  (Ps.  cxlvi.,  verse  2).  Strafford's 
quotation  recalls  the  words  which  Shakespeare 
places  in  the  mouth  of  the  fallen  Wolsey  : 

"  O,  how  wretched 
Is  that  poor  man  that  hangs  on  princes'  favours  I 
There  is,  betwixt  that  smile  we  would  aspire  to, 
That  sweet  aspect  of  princes,  and  their  ruin. 
More  pangs  or  fears  than  wars  or  women  have  ; 
And  when  he  falls,  he  falls  like  Lucifer, 
Never  to  hope  again." 

With  Strafford,  in  all  the  high-handed  acts  of 
Charles's  Government,  was  associated  Laud. 
Against  the  archbishop  were,  in  addition,  arrayed 
the  bitterness  of  religious  feeling  and  the  desire  for 
vengeance  on  a  persecutor.  It  was  partly  the  error 
of  his  time,  partly  the  bias  of  his  legal  mind,  which 
led  him  to  depreciate  the  value  of  diversities  and 
to  exaggerate  that  of  uniformity,  in  matters  of 
belief  and  opinion.  But  adversity  revealed  in  him 
virtues  which  official  severity  had  too  often  con- 
cealed. "  Prejudged  by  foes  determined  not  to 
spare,"  imprisoned  in  the  Tower,  old  and  failing  in 
health,  stricken  with  ague,  subjected  to  unworthy 
insults,  threatened  with  violent  death,  he  never  lost 
his  courage,  his  patience,  or  his  dignity.  Libels 
against  him  flowed  from  the  pens  of  his  opponents  ; 
slanders  ran  from  mouth  to  mouth  ;  abusive  ballads 
were  sung  in  streets  and  taverns.  Laud  comforted 
himself  with  the  thought  that  he  was  "  in  the  same 
case  as  the  Prophet  David."  "  They  that  sit  in 
the  gate  speak  against  me  ;  and  the  drunkards  make 
songs  upon  me"  (Ps.  Ixix.,  verse  12).  Placed  in 
confinement  in  December  1640,  committed  to  the 
Tower  in  the  following  March,  he  waited  for  his 
trial  till  the  spring  of  1644.  The  proceedings  against 
him  were  conducted  with  as  little  respect  to  law  as 
the  most  arbitrary  act  with  which  he  himself  was 


ARCHBISHOP  LAUD  233 

charged.  On  January  10,  1645,  he  suffered  death 
on  Tower  Hill  in  the  seventy-second  year  of  his  age, 
his  face  showing  so  little  fear  of  death  that  his  dis- 
appointed enemies  accused  him  of  having  painted 
his  ruddy  cheeks.  In  his  speech  from  the  scaffold 
he  quoted  Psalm  ix.,  verse  12,  "  For,  when  he  maketh 
inquisition  for  blood,  he  remembereth  them  ;  and 
forgetteth  not  the  complaint  of  the  poor."  It  was 
the  Psalms  that  had  sustained  his  courage  during 
his  long  imprisonment.  His  prayers,  of  which  the 
following  may  be  quoted,  are  cast  in  the  mould  of 
their  thoughts,  and  echo  their  language. 

"  O  Lord,  blessed  is  the  man  that  hath  Thee  for 
his  help,  and  whose  hope  is  in  Thee.  O  Lord,  help 
me  and  all  them  to  right  that  suffer  wrong.  Thou 
art  the  Lord,  which  looseth  men  out  of  prison,  which 
helpest  them  that  are  fallen.  O  Lord,  help  and 
deliver  me,  when  and  as  it  shall  seem  best  to  Thee  ; 
even  for  Jesus  Christ  His  sake.     Amen." 

"  O  Lord,  Thine  indignation  lies  hard  upon  me  ; 
and  though  Thou  hast  not  (for  Thy  mercy  is  great) 
vexed  me  with  all  Thy  storms,  yet  Thou  hast  put 
my  acquaintance  far  from  me,  and  I  am  so  fast  in 
prison  that  I  cannot  get  forth.  Lord,  I  call  daily 
upon  Thee,  hear  and  have  mercy  ;  for  Jesus  Christ 
His  sake.     Amen." 

"  Lord,  turn  Thee  unto  me,  and  have  mercy  upon 
me,  for  I  am  desolate  and  in  misery.  The  sorrows  of 
my  heart  are  enlarged  ;  O  bring  Thou  me  out  of  my 
troubles.  Look  upon  mine  adversity  and  misery, 
and  forgive  me  all  my  sins  ;  through  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord.     Amen." 

"  Hear  my  crying,  O  God,  give  ear  unto  my 
prayer  ;  from  the  ends  of  the  earth,  whithersoever 
Thou  shalt  cast  me,  I  will  call  upon  Thee  when  my 
heart  is  in  heaviness.  O  set  me  upon  the  rock  that 
is  higher  than  I,  to  be  my  hope  and  a  strong  tower 
against  my  oppressors.     Amen." 

"  Save  me,  O  God,  for  the  waters  are  entered  into 


234  THE  PURITANS,  1600-60 

my  soul.  I  stick  fast  in  the  deep  mire,  where  no 
stay  is  ;  I  am  come  into  deep  waters,  and  the  streams 
run  over  me.  They  that  hate  me  without  a  cause 
are  more  than  the  hairs  of  my  head,  and  they  which 
would  destroy  me  causeless  are  mighty.  O  let  not 
these  water-floods  drown  me,  neither  let  the  deep 
swallow  me  up,  and  let  not  the  pit  shut  her  mouth 
upon  me.  Hear  me,  O  Lord,  for  Thy  loving-kind- 
ness is  great  ;  turn  unto  me  according  to  the  mul- 
titude of  Th}?-  tender  mercies.  Hide  not  Thy  face 
from  Thy  servant,  for  I  am  in  trouble,  but  draw 
near  unto  my  soul,  and  redeem  it  ;  for  Jesus  Christ 
His  sake.     Amen." 

When  once  the  Civil  War  had  begun,  it  was  with 
the  Psalms  that  the  shock  of  battle  was  often 
heralded.  So  was  it  at  the  battle  of  Marston  Moor. 
About  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  July  2,  1644, 
the  armies  of  the  King  and  Parliament  faced  each 
other.  The  great  ordnance  began  to  play.  "  The 
first  shot  killed  a  son  of  Sir  Gilbert  Haughton  that 
was  a  captain  in  the  Prince's  army  ;  but  this  was 
only  a  showing  their  teeth  ;  for  after  a  few  shots 
made,  they  gave  over,  and  in  Marston  cornfields 
fell  to  singing  psalms."  With  a  psalm  also  is  asso- 
ciated the  death  of  distinguished  leaders  like  John 
Hampden,  On  Saturday,  June  17,  1643,  about 
four  in  the  afternoon.  Prince  Rupert  rode  out  from 
Oxford  at  the  head  of  his  men,  clattering  over 
Magdalen  Bridge,  and  crossing  the  Thame  at  Chisle- 
hampton.  They  encountered  Hampden  and  his 
troop  at  Chalgrove  Field.  Early  on  Sunday  morn- 
ing, June  18,  Hampden  was  seen  riding  out  of  the 
fight  before  it  was  ended,  his  head  bent,  his  hands 
resting  on  his  horse's  neck.  It  was  a  thing,  says 
Lord  Clarendon,  "  he  never  used  to  do,  and  from 
which  it  was  concluded  he  was  hurt . ' '  He  was  indeed 
mortally  wounded.  It  is  supposed  that  he  first  tried 
to  reach  Pyrton,  where  he  had  wooed  and  won  his 
first  wife,  and  where  he  would  fain  have  died.     But 


JOHN  HAMPDEN  235 

he  was  cut  off  by  Rupert's  horsemen,  and  forced  to 
turn  back  and  ride  to  Thame.  There,  in  the  house  of 
Ezekiel  Browne,  after  six  days'  agony,  he  died.  His 
troopers,  as  they  bore  his  body  to  the  grave  through 
the  beech -woods  of  Buckinghamshire,  chanted 
Psalm  xc,  which,  since  1662,  has  had  its  place  in 
the  burial  service  of  our  Prayer  Book. 

His  power  broken  at  Marston  Moor,  Charles  i. 
was  a  hostage  or  a  prisoner  in  the  Scottish  camp  at 
Newark.  The  triumphant  ministers  insulted  their 
captive  b}^  ordering  Psalm  lii.  to  be  sung  :  "  Why 
boastest  thou  thyself,  thou  tyrant,  that  thou  canst 
do  mischief  ;  whereas  the  goodness  of  God  endureth 
yet  daily?  "  It  was  by  an  appeal  to  the  Psalms 
that  Charles  robbed  the  insult  of  its  sting.  His  only 
reply  was  to  ask  for  Psalm  Ivi.  :  "  Be  merciful  unto 
me,  O  God,  for  man  goeth  about  to  devour  me  ;  he 
is  daily  fighting,  and  troubling  me.  Mine  enemies 
are  daily  in  hand  to  swallow  me  up  ;  for  they  be 
many  that  fight  against  me,  O  thou  most  Highest." 

Instances  of  the  use  of  the  Psalms  by  one  side  or 
other  might  be  multiplied .  But  their  influence  upon 
a  movement,  which  is  still  a  living  force  in  our  midst, 
may  be  best  illustrated  in  the  lives  or  writings  of 
Milton,  Bunyan,  and  Cromwell — the  finest  products 
of  Puritanism  as  a  literary,  spiritual ,  or  political  force . 

Over  Milton  the  Psalms  threw  their  spell  in  early 
life.  At  the  age  of  fifteen,  already  an  undergraduate 
at  Christ's  College,  Cambridge,  he  translated  into 
verse  Psalms  cxiv.  and  cxxxvi.  Of  the  latter,  his 
version  is  the  well  known 

"  Let  us  with  a  gladsome  mind 
Praise  the  Lord  for  he  is  kind, 
For  his  mercies  aye  endure 
Ever  faithful,  ever  sure." 

In  1648,  he  translated  from  the  original  "  into 
meter  "  nine  Psalms  (Ixxx.-lxxxviii.),  and  in  1653, 
eight  more  Psalms  (i.-viii.)  were  "  done  into  verse." 
Throughout  his  poems  are  scattered  allusions,  more 


236  THE  PURITANS,  1600-60 

or  less  direct,  to  the  Psalms.  There  is  an  echo  of 
Psalm  xxiv.,  verses  7-10,  in  his  lines  in  Paradise 
jLos^(Book  vii.,  11.  205-9,  and  11.  565-9)  : 

"  Heav'n  open'd  wide 
Her  ever-during  gates,  harmonious  sound 
On  golden  hinges  moving,  to  let  forth 
The   King  of  Glory  in  His  powerful  Word 
And  Spirit  coming  to  create  new  worlds  ;  " 

and,  as  God  returns  heavenward.  His  creative  word 
accomplished  : 

"  Open,  ye  everlasting  Gates,  they  sung. 
Open,  }'e  Heav'ns,  your  living  doors  ;     let  in 
The  great  Creator,  from  his  work  return'd 
Magnificent,  his  six  days'  work,  a  World." 

In  the  same  Book  (11.  370-4),  the  picture  of  the 
Sun  rejoicing  "as  a  giant  to  run  his  course"  (Ps. 
xix.,  verse  5)  is  in  his  mind,  when  he  writes  : 

"  First  in  his  East  the  glorious  lamp  was  seen, 
Regent  of  day,  and  all  th'  horizon  round 
Invested  with  bright  rays,  jocund  to  run 
His  longitude  through  Heav'n's  high  road." 

Portions  of  the  speech  of  Adam  {Paradise  Lost, 
Book  xii.,  11.  561-6)  seem  a  paraphrase  of  Psalm 
cxlv.  : 

"  Henceforth  I  learn,  that  to  obey  is  best. 
And  love  with  fear  the  only  God,  to  walk 
As  in  his  presence,  ever  to  observe 
His  providence,  and  on  him  sole  depend. 
Merciful  over  all  his  works,  with  good 
Still  overcoming  evil,  and  by  small 
Accomplishing  great  things,  by  things  deem'd  weak 
Subverting  worldly  strong,  and  worldly  wise 
By  simply  meek." 

So  also  in  Samson  Agonistes  (11.  932-7),  when  the 
blind  Samson  rejects  the  appeal  of  Delilah,  he  refers 
to  the  "  deaf  adder  "  of  Psalm  Iviii.,  verse  4  : 

"  I  know  thy  trains. 
Though  dearly  to  my  cost,  thy  gins,  and  toils  ; 
Thy  fair  enchanted  cup,  and  warbling  charms 
No  more  on  me  have  power  ;    their  force  is  nuU'd  ; 
So  much  of  adder's  wisdom  I  have  learn 'd, 
To  fence  my  ear  against  thy  sorceries." 


JOHN  MILTON  237 

Finally,  when,  in  Paradise  Regained,  Satan  tempts 
Christ  with  the  wisdom  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  it  is 
with  praise  of  the  Psalms,  couched  in  the  true  spirit 
of  the  Puritan,  that  the  Saviour  repels  the  tempta- 
tion : 

"  All  our  Law  and  Story  strow'd 
With  hymns,  our  Psalms  with  artful  terms  inscrib'd 
Our  Hebrew  songs  and  harps,  in  Babylon 
That  pleas'd  so  well  our  victor's  ear,  declare 
That  rather  Greece  from  us  these  arts  deriv'd — 
111  imitated,  while  they  loudest  sing 
The  vices  of  their  deities  .   .   . 
Remove  their  swelling  epithets  thick  laid 
As  varnish  on  a  harlot's  cheek,  the  rest. 
Thin  sown  with  aught  of  profit  or  delight, 
Will  far  be  found  unworthy  to  compare 
With  Sion's  songs,  to  all  true  tastes  excelling, 
Where  God  is  prais'd  aright  and  god-like  men, 
The  Holiest  of  Holies,  and  his  Saints,"   etc. 

(Book  iv.,  11.  334-49) 

Paradise  Lost  enshrines  in  stately  verse  the 
general  scheme  of  Puritan  theology  :  The  Pilgrim's 
Progress  applies  that  system  in  allegorical  form  to 
the  sphere  of  individual  life.  Milton's  sonorous 
grandeur  suits  the  theme  of  God's  dealing  with  the 
world  and  with  mankind  ;  equally  well  is  Bunyan's 
language,  homely  yet  never  vulgar,  simple  but 
always  adequate,  racy  without  irreverence,  adapted 
to  his  dramatic  presentation  of  the  moral  warfare 
waged  by  a  human  soul  against  the  powers  of 
evil. 

One  secret  of  the  undying  charm  of  the  great 
Puritan  allegory,  is  its  truth  to  Bunyan's  own  nature. 
He  describes  his  own  experience  :  he  paints,  with 
vivid  realism,  the  picture  of  his  own  inner  self  ; 
the  struggle  of  Christian  is  a  transcript  of  his  own 
spiritual  conflict.  He  has  himself  been  plunged 
into  the  Slough  of  Despond,  himself  fought  hand- 
to-hand  with  Apollyon,  himself  passed  through  the 
Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death,  himself  reached  the 
Heavenly  landing-place.  In  his  Grace  abounding  to 
the  Chief  of  Sinners,  which  bears  the  motto,  "  Come 


238  THE  PURITANS,  1600-60 

and  hear  all  ye  that  fear  God,  and  I  will  declare 
what  he  hath  done  for  my  soul  "  (Ps.  Ixvi.,  verse  14), 
he  has  recorded,  with  a  pen  of  iron  and  in  letters 
of  fire,  his  own  passage  from  death  to  life.  His 
religious  autobiography  traces  his  steps  towards  the 
attainment  of  that  inward  peace,  which  passes  all 
human  understanding  because  it  is  the  Peace  of  God. 
It  chronicles  every  fluctuation  of  hope  and  despair  ; 
it  arrests  and  examines,  with  strange  ingenuity  of 
self-torture,  every  secret  thought,  every  passing 
doubt,  every  momentary  fear.  His  vivid  imagina- 
tion makes  his  feelings  actors  in  a  real  drama. 
As  a  boy,  he  had  felt  the  devil's  claws  strike  into  his 
flesh,  till  he  all  but  screamed  with  pain.  As  a  man, 
he  holds  soundless  colloquies  with  Satan,  whose 
words  seem  to  be  spoken  so  loudly  in  his  ear  that  he 
almost  turns  round,  expecting  to  find  the  tempter 
in  bodily  shape  at  his  elbow. 

The  "  loose,  ungodly  wretch  "  had  become  a 
"  brisk  talker  "  about  religious  matters,  well  spoken 
of  by  his  neighbours  before  his  face  and  even  behind 
his  back.  The  struggle  began  when  he  realised 
that  he  was  but  a  "  poor,  painted  hypocrite," 
ignorant  of  the  meaning  of  true  personal  religion. 
Had  he  faith  ?  he  asked  himself,  and  he  was 
tempted  to  put  his  possession  of  the  gift  to  the  test 
by  bidding  "  the  puddles  in  the  horse-pads  be  dry." 
In  a  vision,  he  saw  himself  shivering  on  the  dark, 
frozen,  snow-clad  side  of  a  high  mountain,  while  on 
the  other  side  all  was  bright  and  bathed  in  sunshine. 
At  first  he  could  find  no  passage  in  the  wall  which 
divided  the  two  sides  of  the  mountain  ;  but  at  length 
he  found  a  gap,  through  which,  with  much  "  sideling 
striving,"  he  squeezed  first  his  head,  then  his 
shoulders,  then  his  whole  body.  The  mountain  was 
God's  Church— the  sunshine.  His  merciful  face — the 
wall,  the  world — the  gap,  Jesus  Christ.  In  his  vehe- 
ment desire  to  be  of  the  number  of  those  who  sat 
in  the  sun,  he  would  often  sing  Psalm  li.     But  new 


BUN  VAN'S  PILGRIM'S  PROGRESS      239 

fears  disquieted  him.  Was  he  elected  ?  Was  the 
day  of  grace  past  and  gone  ?  W^ould  Christ  call 
him  ?  His  heart  a-flame  to  be  converted,  he  yet 
found  that  his  unbelief  set  its  shoulder  to  the  door 
to  keep  out  his  Lord.  Then,  with  many  a  bitter 
sigh,  he  would  cry,  "  Good  Lord,  break  it  open  : 
Lord,  break  these  gates  of  brass,  and  cut  these  bars 
of  iron  asunder  "  (Ps.  cvii.,  verse  16).  So  convinced 
was  he  of  his  own  inward  pollution,  that  he  was,  in 
his  own  sight,  loathsome  as  a  toad.  Sin  and  cor- 
ruption seemed  to  bubble  from  his  heart  as  from  a 
fountain.  Yet  at  times  the  sense  of  God's  love 
cheered  him.  The  words,  "  Thou  art  my  love,  thou 
art  my  love,"  burned  within  his  heart  till  they 
kindled  a  cheerful  blaze.  In  his  joy  he  could  hardly 
refrain  from  telling  his  gladness  to  the  crows  that 
fed  on  the  freshly  turned  plough-lands. 

Once  again  the  comfort  was  dashed  from  his  lips 
by  the  thoughts — are  the  words  true  ? — had  he 
committed  the  unpardonable  sin  against  the  Holy 
Ghost  ? — was  he  beyond  the  pale  of  God's  mercy  ? 
He  would  gladly  have  changed  his  condition  for 
that  of  any  other  living  creature.  A  horse  or  a  dog 
were  happier.  He  prayed.  But  in  his  prayers 
Satan  was  ever  at  his  side,  chilling  the  warmth  of 
his  aspirations,  or  distracting  his  thoughts  with 
wandering  fancies.  Though  "  his  soul  was  much  in 
prayer,"  he  failed  to  pray  to  be  kept  from  the 
temptations  and  the  evil  that  were  to  come.  Of  his 
error,  he  was,  he  says,  "made  deeply  sensible  by  the 
prayer  of  holy  David,  who  when  he  was  under 
present  mercy  yet  prayed  that  God  would  hold  him 
back  from  sin  and  temptation  to  come  :  '  So  shall 
I  be  undefiled,  and  innocent  from  the  great 
offence  '  "  (Ps.  xix.,  verse  13).  Even  when  he  was 
consoled  by  the  conviction  of  God's  continued  love 
towards  him,  and  by  the  sense  of  his  own  earnest 
love  for  Christ,  the  struggle  was  renewed.  He  was 
assailed   by  a  "  yet  more  grievous   and   dreadful 


240  THE  PURITANS,  1600-60 

temptation  than  before,"  which  never  left  him  for  a 
day.  The  tempter  bade  him  exchange  Christ  for 
the  things  of  this  world.  "  Sell  Him  for  this," 
whispered  Satan,  as  he  put  a  morsel  of  food  in  his 
mouth.  "  Sell  Him  for  this,"  as  he  chopped  a 
stick,  or  stooped  to  pick  up  a  pin.  At  last  he 
thought  that  he  had  3delded  to  the  temptation,  and 
had  committed  the  "  great  offence  "  of  Psalm  xix., 
verse  13.  He  compared  himself  to  Esau,  who  could 
not  ransom  his  bartered  birthright  by  an  eternity 
of  repentance.  Like  Judas,  he  felt  his  breast-bone 
splitting  asunder.  At  moments  the  words  of  Psalm 
Ixviii.,  verse  18  ("  Thou  hast  received  gifts  for  men, 
yea,  even  for  thine  enemies  "),  consoled  him.  If 
God  had  gifts  for  His  enemies,  why  not  for  him  ? 
Yet  so  despondent  was  he,  that  he  thought  the  sun 
grudged  him  his  light,  and  the  very  roof-tiles  and 
paving-stones  were  banded  together  against  him. 
Again  happiness  returned  to  him,  as  he  pondered 
over  the  words,  "  If  thou.  Lord,  wilt  be  extreme  to 
mark  what  is  done  amiss  ;  O  Lord,  who  may  abide 
it  ?  For  there  is  mercy  with  thee  ;  therefore  shalt 
thou  be  feared  "  (Ps.  cxxx.,  verses  3,4).  But  once 
more  he  felt  that  his  own  transgressions  had  left 
him  neither  foot-hold  nor  hand-hold  "  among  all 
the  stays  and  props  in  the  precious  word  of  life." 
For  two  years  and  a  half  the  discouragement  con- 
tinued. As  he  was  vehemently  desiring  to  know 
whether  there  was  indeed  hope  for  him,  these  words 
came  rolling  into  his  mind  :  "  Will  the  Lord  absent 
himself  for  ever  ;  and  will  he  be  no  more  intreated  ? 
Is  his  mercy  clean  gone  for  ever  ;  and  is  his  promise 
come  utterly  to  an  end  for  evermore  ?  Hath  God 
forgotten  to  be  gracious,  and  will  he  shut  up  his 
lovmg-kindness  in  displeasure  ?  "  (Ps.  Ixxvii.,  verses 
7-9).  He  was  not  far  from  the  end  of  his  struggle. 
"  One  da}?-,"  he  says,  "  as  I  was  passing  into  the 
field,  and  that  too  with  some  dashes  on  my  con- 
science, fearing  lest  yet  all  was  not  right,  suddenly 


BUNYAN  AT  PEACE  241 

this  sentence  fell  upon  my  soul,  *  Thy  righteousness 
is  in  heaven.'  And  methou^ht  withal,  I  saw  with 
theeyesof  my  soul,  Jesus  Christ  at  God's  right-hand  ; 
there,  I  say,  was  my  righteousness  ;  so  that  wherever 
I  was,  or  whatever  I  was  doing,  God  could  not  say 
of  me,  '  He  wants  my  righteousness,'  for  that  was 
just  before  Him.  I  also  saw,  moreover,  that  it  was 
not  my  good  frame  of  heart  that  made  my  right- 
eousness better,  nor  yet  my  bad  frame  that  made  my 
righteousness  worse  ;  for  my  righteousness  was 
Jesus  Christ  Himself,  '  the  same  yesterday,  to-day, 
and  for  ever,'  Heb.  xiii.,  verse  8."  He  returned 
home  rejoicing  ;  his  temptations  fled  away  :  the 
"  dreadful  Scriptures  of  God  "  ceased  to  trouble  him  ; 
he  "  lived  very  sweetly  at  peace  with  God  through 
Christ."  He  penetrated  "  the  mystery  of  union 
with  the  Son  of  God  "  ;  realised  that  he  was  joined 
to  Him,  flesh  of  His  flesh,  bone  of  His  bone. 

A  man  who  had  gained  his  peace  at  such  a  cost  was 
not  likely  to  surrender  his  convictions  lightly.  Yet 
the  thought  of  the  misery  that  might  befall  his  family, 
and  especially  his  blind  child,  made  him  shrink  from 
imprisonment.  The  irresolution  was  momentary. 
"  If  I  should,"  he  says,  "  venture  all  for  God,  I 
engaged  God  to  take  care  of  my  concernments  ;  but 
if  I  forsook  Him  and  His  ways,  for  fear  of  any  trouble 
that  should  come  to  me  or  mine,  then  I  should  not  only 
falsify  my  profession,  but  should  count  also  that  my 
concernments  were  not  so  sure,  if  left  at  God's  feet 
while  I  stood  to  and  for  His  name,  as  they  would  be  if 
they  were  under  my  own  tuition,  though  with  the 
denial  of  the  way  of  God.  This  was  a  smarting  con- 
sideration, and  was  as  spurs  into  my  flesh.  That 
scripture  (Ps.  cix.,  verses  6-20)  also  greatly  helped 
it  to  fasten  the  more  upon  me,  where  Christ  prays 
against  Judas,  that  God  would  disappoint  him  in  his 
selfish  thoughts,  which  moved  him  to  sell  his  Master  ; 
pray  read  it  soberly,  Psalm  cix.,  verses  6,  7,  8,"  etc. 

The  personal  grip  with  which  Bunyan  had  laid 


242  THE  PURITANS,  1600-60 

hold  of  his  rehgion  gave  him  powers  as  a  preacher 
which  were  envied  by  the  most  learned  of  his  con- 
temporaries. "  In  my  preaching,"  he  writes,  "  I 
have  really  been  in  pain,  and  have,  as  it  were,  tra- 
vailed to  bring  forth  children  to  God  ;  neither 
could  I  be  satisfied  miless  some  fruits  did  appear  in 
my  work  :  if  I  were  fruitless,  it  mattered  not  who 
commended  me  ;  but  if  I  were  fruitful,  I  cared  not 
who  did  condemn.  I  have  thought  of  that,  '  Lo, 
children  and  the  fruit  of  the  womb  are  an  heritage 
and  gift  that  cometh  of  the  Lord.  Like  as  the 
arrows  in  the  hand  of  the  giant,  even  so  are  the 
young  children.  Happy  is  the  man  that  hath  his 
quiver  full  of  them  ;  they  shall  not  be  ashamed  when 
they  speak  with  their  enemies  in  the  gate  '  "  (Ps. 
cxxvii.,  verses  4-6). 

In  the  poetry  of  Milton,  in  the  mental  history 
of  Bunyan,  the  power  of  the  Psalms  is  strongly 
marked.  Their  influence  is  still  more  clearly  seen 
in  the  career  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  the  foremost 
figure  in  the  stirring  times  of  the  Puritan  revolution, 
the  strongest  type  of  the  stern  religion  which  raised 
him  to  the  summit  of  fame  and  fortune.  The  spirit 
that  he  read  into  the  Psalms  governed  his  actions  at 
each  supreme  crisis  of  his  stormy  life  ;  the  most 
striking  stages  in  his  career  are  marked  by  quota- 
tions from  the  Psalms  ;  in  his  private  letters,  his 
public  dispatches,  his  addresses  to  Parliament,  the 
imagery,  metaphors,  and  language  of  the  Psalms 
drop  from  his  lips,  or  from  his  pen,  as  if  by  constant 
meditation  he  had  made  their  phraseology  a  part  of 
his  very  life. 

In  January  1636,  Cromwell  had  moved  his  home 
to  Ely  from  St.  Ives,  where,  as  a  farmer,  a  grazier, 
and  a  notable  man  in  parochial  business,  he  had  left 
his  mark.  At  Ely,  as  the  heir  of  his  uncle,  Sir 
Thomas  Stewart,  Knight,  he  lived  close  to  St.  Mary's 
Churchyard,  at  the  corner  of  the  great  Tithe  Barn. 
From  that  house  he  wrote  one  of  his  first  extant 


OLIVER  CROMWELL  243 

letters,  addressed  to  his  cousin,  Mrs.  St.  John,  the 
wife  of  the  celebrated  ship-money  lawyer.  In  it  he 
speaks  of  himself  and  his  lot  in  life. 

"  Truly,  then,"  he  says,  "  this  I  find  ;  that  He 
giveth  springs  in  a  dry,  barren  wilderness  where  no 
water  is.  I  live,  you  know  where, — in  Meshec, 
which  they  say  signifies  prolonging  ;  in  Kedar, 
which  signifies  blackness  ;  yet  the  Lord  forsaketh 
me  not.  Though  He  do  prolong,  yet  He  will,  I 
trust,  bring  me  to  His  tabernacle,  to  His  resting- 
place  "  (Ps.  cxx.). 

Twenty  years  later,  after  prolonged  and  bitter 
strife,  Oliver  Cromwell  had  become  Lord  Protector. 
On  the  1 6th  of  September  1656,  as  he  sat  in  his 
Palace  of  Whitehall,  he  was  reading  and  pondering 
the  85th  Psalm.  The  following  day  he  rode  in 
state  from  Whitehall  to  the  Abbey  Church  of  West- 
minster to  open  the  second  Parliament  of  the  Pro- 
tectorate, Before  his  coach  went  "  hundreds  of 
gentlemen  and  officers,  bareheaded,  the  Life 
Guards,  and  his  pages  and  lacqueys  richly  clothed." 
The  service  ended,  he  returned  to  Whitehall  with 
the  same  pomp  and  ceremony,  and,  entering  the 
Painted  Chamber,  delivered  a  speech  to  the  newly 
assembled  members,  which  in  part  is  an  exposition 
of  the  85th  and  46th  Psalms. 

Within  those  twenty  years  had  passed  some  of 
the  most  stirring  scenes  of  English  history.  In  all 
of  them  Cromwell  was  a  principal  actor,  and  in  all, 
the  Book  of  Psalms — sometimes  misread,  some- 
times grimly  travestied,  rarely  if  ever  interpreted 
by  the  tender  light  of  the  New  Testament — was  his 
constant  companion  and  guide. 

Throughout  the  war  he  never  ceases  to  speak  the 
language  of  the  Psalms.  He  relies  not  on  men  and 
visible  helps,  though  no  practical  detail  which  can 
give  success  to  his  arms  escapes  his  keen  eye.  It  is 
God's  cause  in  which  he  fights.  In  God  is  his 
strength.     It  is  God  who  says,  "  Up  and  be  doing, 

17 


244  THE  PURITANS,  1600-60 

and  I  will  stand  by  you  and  help  you."  It  is  God 
who  makes  the  Royahsts  as  "  stubble  "  (Ps.  Ixxxiii., 
verse  13)  before  the  swords  of  the  Puritans.  In 
him  and  in  his  troopers  burns  the  spirit  of  young 
Walton,  who  died  at  Marston  Moor  with  one  thing 
only  lying  heavy  on  his  soul — that  "  God  had  not 
suffered  him  to  be  any  more  the  executioner  of  His 
enemies." 

At  Naseby  fight,  Cromwell  had  seen  "  the  enemy 
draw  up  and  march  in  gallant  order  towards  us, 
and  we,  a  company  of  poor,  ignorant  men,  at  pains 
to  order  our  battle."  Yet  "  he  smiled  out  to  God  in 
praises,  in  assurance  of  victory,  because  God  would, 
by  things  that  are  not,  bring  to  naught  things  that 
are.  Of  which  I  had  great  assurance  ;  and  God 
did  it.  O  that  men  would  therefore  praise  the 
Lord,  and  declare  the  wonders  that  He  doeth  for 
the  children  of  men  !  "  (Ps.  cvii.,  verse  8). 

As  the  victory  at  Naseby  is  the  "  hand  of  God," 
and  "  to  Him  alone  belongs  the  glory,"  so  in  the 
storming  of  Bristol  he  "  must  be  a  very  atheist  who 
doth  not  acknowledge  God 's  word . ' '  The  same  spirit 
is  manifested  at  Basing  House.  Old  and  New  Basing, 
each  fitted  to  make  "  an  emperor's  court,"  stood, 
as  Hugh  Peters  described  it,  "  in  its  full  pride,  and 
the  enemy  was  persuaded  that  it  would  be  the  last 
piece  of  ground  that  would  be  taken  by  the  Parlia- 
ment." It  had  stood  siege  after  siege,  till  the 
Royalists  called  it  Basting  House  ;  and  truly,  so 
long  as  it  was  held  for  the  king,  no  Parliament  man 
could  travel  the  western  roads  in  safety.  The 
Marquis  of  Winchester,  to  whom  it  belonged,  was  a 
zealous  Roman  Catholic  ;  and  to  Cromwell  it  was  a 
nest,  not  only  of  malignants,  but  of  Papists,  a  strong- 
hold of  darkness,  a  place  of  idols. 

On  the  8th  of  October  1645,  Cromwell  arrived 
before  Basing  with  a  train  of  heavy  artillery.  On 
the  nth  his  batteries  were  in  position,  and  the 
garrison   was    summoned    to    surrender.      If   they 


SIEGE  OF  BASING  HOUSE  245 

refused  quarter  now,  on  their  heads  be  it.  No 
mercy  would  be  shown.  The  summons  was  hghtly 
set  aside.  Lord  Winchester  would  hold  "  Loyalty 
House  "  to  the  uttermost. 

At  midnight  on  the  13th,  two  wide  breaches  were 
effected,  and  it  was  resolved  to  storm  the  place 
before  sunrise  on  the  morning  of  the  14th.  The 
assault  was  delivered.  The  defenders  were  too  few 
to  resist  the  storming  parties.  No  quarter  was 
asked,  and  none  given.  "  Our  muskets  and  swords," 
says  a  contemporary  newspaper,  "  showed  little 
compassion."  Great  was  the  plunder  of  plate  and 
jewels,  of  gold  and  silver,  tapestry  and  rich  attire. 
When  Cromwell's  army  moved  away,  the  defenders 
had  been  put  to  the  sword,  the  altars  thrown  to  the 
ground,  the  priests  killed  or  reserved  for  the  knife 
and  the  gallows,  and  Basing  House  was  a  heap  of 
blackened  ashes.  A  grim  comment  on  the  power  of 
the  Psalms  follows,  Lieutenant-General  Cromwell, 
Hugh  Peters  tells  us,  "  had  spent  much  time  with 
God  in  prayer  the  night  before  the  storm  ;  and 
seldom  fights  without  some  text  of  Scripture  to 
support  him.  This  time  he  rested  upon  that  blessed 
W^ord  of  God,  written  in  the  115th  Psalm,  verse  8, 
They  that  make  them  are  like  unto  theni  ;  so  is  every 
one  that  trusteth  in  them.  Which,  with  some  verses 
going  before,  was  now  accomplished," 

When  the  war  was  ended,  it  is  still  in  the  same 
strain  that  Cromwell  speaks.  Thus,  in  November 
1648,  he  writes  to  Colonel  Robert  Hammond  : 

"  We  have  not  been  without  our  share  of  be- 
holding some  remarkable  providences  and  appear- 
ances of  the  Lord.  His  presence  hath  been  amongst 
us,  and  by  the  light  cf  His  countenance  we  have 
prevailed." 

It  was,  again,  in  the  spirit  of  the  sternest  of  the 
Psalms  that  Cromwell  entered  on  the  Irish  War. 
He  is  an  armed  soldier  of  God,  executing  His  judg- 
ments upon  His  enemies,  terrible  as  death,  relentless 


246  THE  PURITANS,  1600-60 

as  doom.  With  the  sword  in  one  hand  and  his  Acts 
of  Parhament  in  the  other,  he  offers  the  choice  of 
disobedience  and  death,  or  obedience  and  hfe. 
And,  as  Drogheda  and  Wexford  testified,  his  words 
represented  deeds. 

In  July  1650,  the  war  with  Scotland  began. 
Charles  11.  accepted  the  Covenant,  and  with  Bucking- 
ham and  Wilmot  at  his  side — strange  instruments 
for  such  a  task — had  crossed  the  seas  from  Breda 
to  be  the  earthly  representative  of  that  theocracy 
which  the  Scottish  Kirk  desired  to  see  established. 
Cromwell,  returning  from  Ireland,  was  made  Com- 
mander-in-Chief, and  sent  to  the  front  to  check  the 
threatened  Scottish  invasion.  It  was  with  a  psalm 
in  his  mind  that  he  set  out  on  his  mission.  A  few 
days  before  his  departure,  he  had  a  strange  interview 
with  Colonel  Edmund  Ludlow,  one  of  the  sternest  of 
Republicans.  Calling  Ludlow  aside  into  a  private 
room  at  Whitehall,  he  charged  him  with  a  changed 
countenance  towards  him,  and  with  suspicions  of 
his  objects.  He  professed  his  readiness  to  sacrifice 
his  life  in  the  service  of  the  people  ;  he  declared 
that  he  desired  nothing  better  than  a  "  free  and 
equal  Commonwealth  "  ;  he  spoke  at  length  of  the 
"  great  providences  of  God  now  abroad  upon  the 
earth."  Then  he  "  spent  at  least  an  hour  in  the 
exposition  of  iioth  Psalm,"  saying  that  he  looked 
upon  the  design  of  the  Lord  in  that  day  to  be  the 
freeing  of  His  people  from  every  burden,  and  that 
he  himself  was  the  chosen  instrument  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  events  foretold  in  that  psalm. 

So  Cromwell  set  out,  assured  that  the  Lord  would 
make  His  enemies  His  footstool,  that  "  in  the  day 
of  His  wrath  He  would  wound  even  kings,"  and  that 
He  would  "  judge  among  the  heathen,"  and  "  fill  the 
places  with  the  dead  bodies  "  (Ps.  ex.,  verses  5,  6). 
At  the  end  of  July  he  had  crossed  the  Border,  and 
reached  Musselburgh.  Between  him  and  Edinburgh 
lay  General  David  Leslie,  entrenched  behind  strong 


THE  BATTLE  OF  DUNBAR  347 

lines,  and  protected  by  the  guns  of  Edinburgh  and 
Leith.  It  was  a  crisis  on  which  were  centred  mighty 
interests.  Two  hosts,  each  claiming  to  be  the  Lord's 
chosen  people,  were  about  to  put  their  claims  to  the 
test.  To  which  should  victory  be  given  ?  All  Crom- 
well's efforts  to  induce  the  Scots  to  risk  a  battle  were 
vain.  Affairs  of  outposts  and  skirmishes  took  place  : 
but  day  after  day  Leslie  lay  steady  within  his  lines, 
while  Cromwell's  provisions  were  failing,  and  his 
numbers  dwindling  through  sickness.  Equally 
futile  were  Cromwell's  attempts  to  persuade  the 
Kirk  Commissioners  that  their  cause  was  unrighteous, 
and  that  Charles  Stewart  was  unfit  to  rule  over  a 
godly  people.  He  received  but  a  curt  anwer  to  his 
appeal,  backed  though  it  was  by  the  confident 
assertion  that  "  before  it  be  long,  the  Lord  will 
manifest  His  good  pleasure  so  that  all  shall  see  Him, 
and  His  people  shall  say,  '  This  is  the  Lord's  doing, 
and  it  is  marvellous  in  our  eyes  ;  this  is  the  day  which 
the  Lord  hath  made  ;  we  will  rejoice  and  be  glad 
in  it  ' "  (Ps.  cxviii.,  verses  23,  24). 

Days  passed  ;  Cromwell's  provisions  ran  short  ; 
the  weather  was  wet  and  stormy,  so  that  his  stores 
could  not  be  landed,  and  at  the  end  of  August  he 
fired  his  huts  and  marched  towards  Dunbar,  Leslie 
hanging  on  his  rear  and  keeping  on  the  higher 
ground.  Taking  full  advantage  of  his  superior 
knowledge  of  the  country,  the  Scottish  commander 
occupied  the  Doon  Hill,  a  spur  of  the  Lammermoor 
Hills,  standing  forward  from  the  range  like  a  watch- 
tower,  and,  seizing  the  Cockburnspath,  the  wild 
river  chasm  eastward  of  Dunbar,  which  forms  the 
approach  to  Berwick,  thrust  in  his  army  between 
Cromwell  and  the  English  Border.  Here  then  was 
Cromwell  with  a  force  of  1 1,000  opposed  to  23,000, 
hemmed  in  between  the  hills  and  the  sea,  with 
Scotland  in  his  rear  and  Leslie's  army  in  his  front. 

Cromwell  knew  that  he  was  in  desperate  case. 
"  Our  condition,"  he  says,  "  was  made  very  sad." 


348  THE  PURITANS,   1600-60 

On  the  2nd  of  September  he  wrote  a  letter,  hastily 
folded  before  the  ink  was  dry,  to  Sir  Arthur  Hasle- 
rigg,  the  Governor  of  Newcastle,  asking  for  aid,  and 
bidding  him  prepare  for  the  worst.  On  the  same 
day  on  which  this  letter  was  written,  Leslie  began 
to  move  his  army  down  from  the  Doon  Hill  to  lower 
ground,  from  which  he  proposed  the  next  morning 
to  attack  the  English  army. 

The  moment  that  Cromwell  saw  this  movement 
he  recognised  the  advantage  which  it  gave  him. 
"  The  Lord  hath  delivered  them  into  our  hands  " 
is  the  traditional  exclamation  that  burst  from  his 
lips  as  he  saw  his  antagonist  "  shogging  "  down  the 
hill.  He  determined  that  he  would  himself  be  the 
assailant  at  sunrise  on  the  next  morning.  Through- 
out the  wet  and  cold  night  of  Monday  the  2nd,  in 
the  storms  of  rain  and  sleet,  he  made  his  disposi- 
tions. When,  at  four  o'clock,  the  moon  shone  out 
through  the  hail-clouds,  all  was  not  yet  ready.  An 
hour  later,  the  trumpets  pealed,  the  cannon  roared 
along  the  line,  and  Cromwell's  horse  and  foot, 
shouting  their  watchword,  "  The  Lord  of  Hosts," 
burst  upon  the  Scottish  troops,  who,  stiffened  by 
the  cold  and  with  unlighted  matches,  were  beginning 
to  stir  themselves  as  the  twilight  crept  among  the 
shocks  of  corn  where  they  had  bivouacked.  Here 
and  there  the  fight  was  stubborn  ;  Leslie's  horse 
boldly  answered  back  the  English  challenge  with 
their  shout  of  "  The  Covenant."  But  the  position 
was  such  that  the  Scottish  general  could  make  no 
use  of  his  superior  numbers,  and  when,  over  St. 
Abb's  Head  and  the  German  Ocean,  burst  the  rising 
sun,  the  gleam  drew  from  Cromwell's  lips  the 
triumphant  cry,  "  Let  God  arise,  and  let  his  enemies 
be  scattered  "  (Ps.  Ixviii.,  verse  i).  The  horse  broke 
and  fled,  trampling  down  the  undisciplined  masses 
behind  them  ;  the  rout  was  complete.  The  "  chase 
and  execution"  of  the  fugitives  lasted  for  eight 
miles,  till  the  Lord  General  made  a  halt  in  his  pur- 


THE  "  BAREBONES  "  PARLIAMENT     249 

suit,  and  sang  the  1 17th  Psalm.  It  was  but  a  brief 
respite.  Practical  in  his  religion  as  in  all  else, 
Cromwell  chose  the  shortest  Psalm  in  the  book. 

A  year  later,  on  the  same  day  of  the  month, 
September  3,  1651,  came  the  "  crowning  mercy  "  of 
the  battle  of  Worcester.  On  the  enemy,  writes 
Cromwell  to  Mr.  Cotton,  of  Boston,  New  England, 
the  Lord  "  rained  snares,"  so  that  "  of  the  whole  army 
of  the  Scottish  King  and  the  Malignant  party,  not 
five  men  were  returned.  Surely,"  he  adds,  "  the 
Lord  is  greatly  to  be  feared,  and  to  be  praised  " 
(Ps,  Ixxxix.,  verse  8). 

In  1653  the  Rump  had  been  expelled,  and  in  their 
place  were  assembled  "  divers  persons,  fearing  God, 
and  of  approved  fidelity  and  honesty,"  who  consti- 
tuted the ' '  Barebones ' '  Parliament .  On  July  4,  Crom- 
well, standing  by  the  window  opposite  the  middle 
of  the  table  in  the  centre  of  the  Council  Chamber  of 
Whitehall,  the  officers  of  the  army  ranged  on  his  right 
and  left,  addressed  that  strange  assembly,  every 
member  of  which  was  a  man  in  whom  Cromwell 
hoped  to  find  "  faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  love  to  all 
people  and  saints."  His  speech  is  loaded  with  refer- 
ences to  the  Psalms,  especially  Psalm  ex.  and  Psalm 
Ixviii.  He  hints  that  their  meeting  may  be  "  the 
door  to  usher  in  the  things  that  God  has  promised, 
which  He  has  set  the  hearts  of  His  people  to  wait  for 
and  expect."  They  are  "  at  the  edge  of  the  promises 
and  prophecies  " ;  and  then  he  expounds  Psalm  Ixviii. 
God  is  bringing  His  people  out  of  deep  waters  ;  He  is 
setting  up  the  glory  of  His  Gospel  Church,  Kings  of 
armies  had  fled,  and  the  spoil  had  been  divided. 

"  And  indeed  the  triumph  of  that  psalm  is  exceed- 
ing high  and  great  ;  and  God  is  accomplishing  it. 
And  the  close  of  it — that  closeth  with  my  heart, 
and  I  do  not  doubt  with  yours — '  The  Lord  shaketh 
the  hills  and  mountains,  and  they  reel.'  And  God 
hath  a  hill  too  ;  an  high  hill  as  the  Hill  of  Bashan ; 
and  the  chariots  of  God  are  twenty  thousand,  even 


2SO  THE  PURITANS,   1600-60 

thousands  of  angels  ;  and  God  will  dwell  upon  this 
hill  for  ever  !  " 

On  Monday,  September  4,  in  the  following  year 
(1654),  the  Lord  Protector  had  returned  in  state  to 
Whitehall  from  Westminster  Abbey.  Entering  the 
Painted  Chamber,  in  all  the  plenitude  of  his  power, 
he  delivered  a  speech  to  the  assembly.  In  it  he 
enlarged  on  the  stupendous  providences  of  God. 

"  As  David,"  he  continues,  "  said  in  the  like  case 
(Ps.  xL,  verse  6), '  Many,  O  Lord  my  God,  are  Thy 
wonderful  works  which  Thou  hast  done,  and  Thy 
thoughts  which  are  to  usward  ;  they  cannot  be 
reckoned  up  in  order  unto  Thee  ;  if  I  would  declare 
and  speak  of  them,  the}^  are  more  than  can  be 
numbered.'  " 

Once  more.  On  Tuesday,  September  16,  1656, 
Cromwell  was  reading  the  85th  Psalm  in  Whitehall. 
It  was  the  day  before  the  meeting  of  the  second 
Parliament  of  the  Protectorate.  The  next  day, 
with  the  usual  ceremonies,  Parliament  was  opened, 
and  the  Lord  Protector  addressed  a  speech  to  the 
members.  "  Yesterday,"  he  said,  "  I  did  read  a 
psalm,  which  truly  may  not  unbecome  both  me  to 
tell  you  of,  and  you  to  observe.  It  is  the  85th 
Psalm  ;  it  is  very  instructive  and  significant  ; 
though  I  do  but  a  little  touch  upon  it,  I  desire  your 
perusal  and  pleasure."  Then  he  expounded  to  them 
his  vision  of  hope — God's  will  done  on  earth,  and 
England  an  emblem  of  heaven  where  God's  will 
reigns  supreme.  To  this  work  he  exhorted  his 
Parhament  to  set  their  hearts. 

"  And,"  he  says,  "  if  you  set  your  hearts  to  it, 
then  you  will  sing  Luther's  Psalm  (xlvi.).  That  is  a 
rare  psalm  for  a  Christian  !  and  if  he  set  his  heart 
open,  and  can  approve  it  to  God,  we  shall  hear  him 
say,  '  God  is  our  refuge  and  strength,  a  very  present 
help  in  trouble.'  ...  If  Pope  and  Spaniard,  and 
devil  and  all,  set  themselves  against  us — yet  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord  we  should  destroy  them  I     *  The 


DEATH  OF  CROMWELL  251 

Lord  of  Hosts  is  with  us  ;   the  God  of  Jacob  is  our 
refuge.'  " 

Two  years  later,  on  Thursday,  September  2, 
1658,  Cromwell  lay  dying.  "  He  was  very  restless 
most  part  of  the  night,  speaking  often  to  himself," 
using  "  towards  morning  divers  holy  expressions, 
implying  much  inward  consolation  and  peace." 
When  the  morrow's  sun  rose,  he  was  speechless. 
By  three  or  four  in  the  afternoon  he  lay  dead.  Did 
he  strengthen  himself  with  the  Psalms  for  the  last 
battle  of  his  militant  life  ?  Were  the  words  which 
he  spoke  to  himself  such  as  these  ? — "  Though  I 
walk  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death, 
I  will  fear  no  evil  ;  for  thou  art  with  me  ;  thy  rod 
and  thy  staff  comfort  me  "  (Ps.  xxiii.,  verse  4). 


CHAPTER    X 

The  Scottish  Covenanters  and   the    Revolu- 
tion OF  i6SS 

Progress  of  the  Reformation  in  Scotland — George  Wishart,  John 
Knox,  James  Mch-iUe  ;  the  Solemn  Leagnc  and  Covenant 
(163S)  ;  the  restoration  of  Episcopacy  (i 661-4)  <  popular  dis- 
content— ^the  Pentland  Rising,  Hugh  M'Kail,  Drumclog  and 
Both  well  Bridge,  Richard  Cameron,  Donald  Cargill.  Baillie  of 
Jer\-iswood.  Sir  Patrick  Home  of  Polwarth.  Alexander  Peden, 
James  Ren-wick,  the  Wigtow-n  Mart\T^  ;  the  Revolution  of  16SS ; 
siege  of  Derrv-  (16S9). 

IN  words  of  vehement  hatred,  Patrick  Walker 
described  prelacy  as  "  That  old  strumpet 
mother  and  eldest  beautiful  daughter  of  Antichrist, 
with  which  the  blinded  nations  have  been  and  are 
sadly  be^\■itched  :  but  vile,  vile,  loathsome  and 
hateful  in  the  eves  of  all  zealous  serious  godly  in 
Scotland,  ever  since  the  Lord  made  light  to  arise 
to  see  her  abominations."  The  passage  expressed, 
\vith  little  exaggeration  of  language,  the  feelings 
of  the  majority  of  the  Scottish  people  in  the  seven- 
teenth centur\'.  The  hatred  of  prelacy  was  not 
indeed  shared  by  the  aristocracy,  nor  had  it 
extended  to  the  north  of  Scotland.  But  in  the 
Lowlands,  and  among  the  middle  and  lower  classes, 
it  was  as  bitter  as  the  love  of  Presbj^terian  forms 
was  deep  and  strong. 

"  In  the  year  of  Grod  1544  .  .  .  came  to  Scot- 
land that  Blessed  Mart\T  of  God,  Master  George 
Wishart."  So  John  Knox  began  his  stors"  of  the 
beloved  master,  of  whom  he  speaks  with  a  reverent 
tenderness  that  rarely  comes  to  the  surface  of  his 


THE  "  SPIRITUAL  SANGIS  '"  253 

independent,  self-reliant  character.  Not  a  few 
martvTS  had  already  suffered  in  Scotland  for 
conscience'  sake.  Even  so  illustrious  a  scholar 
as  George  Buchanan  had  narrowly  escaped  the 
clutch  of  Cardinal  Beaton,  though  the  archbishop's 
wrath  was  less  stirred  by  Buchanan's  Latin  version 
of  the  Psalms  than  by  his  satires  on  clerical  vices. 
What  Buchanan  did  in  the  language  of  scholars, 
Sir  David  Lindsay  did  in  homely  Scotch.  But 
the  true  vernacular  poetry  of  the  day  was  enshrined 
in  the  collections  of  "  Spiritual  Sangis,"  including 
"  the  Psalmes  of  David,  with  uther  new  plesand 
Ballatis,"  No  edition  of  the  collected  verses, 
which  are  mainly  the  work  of  three  brothers, 
James,  John,  and  Robert  Wedderbum,  is  known 
till  1567.  But  the  Songs  and  Psalms,  printed  on 
separate  sheets,  or  sung  by  wandering  minstrels, 
had  already  circulated  among  the  people  and 
filtered  into  common  knowledge. 

The  way  was  paved  for  the  Reformed  doctrines 
before  Wishart's  arrival  in  Scotland.  But  there  was 
about  him  that  personal  fascination,  which  made  him 
the  leader  of  the  movement,  and  won  him  the  devo- 
tion of  his  disciple,  John  Knox.  His  tall  figure  and 
bearded  face,  with  his  round  French  hat,  long  frieze 
mantle,  black  doublet  and  hose,  white  falling  bands 
and  cuffs,  soon  became  familiar,  as  he  preached  by 
market  crosses,  at  the  dyke-side  of  Mauchline,  in 
private  houses,  or,  more  rarely,  in  parish  kirks.  He 
was  preaching  in  Kyle  when  "  word  was  brought 
that  the  plague  of  pestilence  was  risen  in  Dundee 
.  .  .  and  the  pest  was  so  vehement,  that  it  almost 
passed  credibility,  to  hear  vv'hat  number  departed 
ever\*  four-and-twenty  hours."  Hastening  to  the 
plague-stricken  city,  Wishart  took  his  station  at  the 
East  Port  ;  those  that  were  "  whole  sat  or  stood 
within,  and  the  sick  and  suspected  without  the  Port ." 
Standing,  as  it  were,  between  life  and  death,  he 
preached  to  the  people  from  Psalm  cvii.,  verse  20, 


3S4       THE  SCOTTISH  COVENANTERS 

"  He  sent  his  word,  and  healed  them,"  and  by  his 
words  "  so  raised  up  the  hearts  of  all  that  heard  him, 
that  they  regarded  not  death,  but  judged  them 
more  happy  that  should  depart,  than  such  as  should 
remain  behind." 

Wishart,  already  inhibited  from  preaching,  knew 
that  he  would  not  long  remain  unmolested.  In 
December  1 545  he  had  left  Haddington,  bidding 
Knox  return  to  his  pupils,  and  causing  the  two- 
handed  sword  which  he  carried  to  be  taken  from 
him,  "  One  is  sufficient  for  one  sacrifice,"  he  said. 
He  spent  the  night  at  Ormiston  with  the  laird  and 
other  friends.  Supper  ended,  the  company  sang 
together  Psalm  li.  in  Wedderburn's  version  : 

"  Have  mercy  on  me  now,  good  Lord, 
After  Thy  great  mercie  ; 
My  sinful  life  does  me  remord, 
Wliich  sore  has  grieved  me." 

Then  he  passed  to  his  bedchamber,  with  the  words, 
"  God 'grant  quiet  rest."  That  night  he  was  seized 
by  Earl  Bothwell,  and  eventually  carried  to  the 
"  Sea-Tower  of  St.  Andrews."  Convicted  of  heresy, 
he  was  burned,  March  i,  1546,  at  the  foot  of  the 
Castle  Wynd,  opposite  the  castle  gate.  Almost 
his  last  words  were  taken  from  a  psalm.  "  When 
he  came  to  the  fire,"  says  Knox,  "  he  sat  down  upon 
his  knees,  and  rose  up  again,  and  thrice  he  said 
these  words  :  '  O  Thou  Saviour  of  the  world,  have 
mercy  upon  me  !  Father  of  Heaven,  I  commend  m}'' 
spirit  into  Thy  holy  hands  '  "  (Ps.  xxxi.,  verse  6).  As 
a  sign  of  forgiveness  he  kissed  the  executioner  on  the 
cheek,  saying,  "Lo,  here  is  a  token  that  I  forgive  thee. 
My  harte,  do  thy  office."  So  died  George  Wishart. 
But  for  Wishart 's  personal  influence  and  tragic 
death,  it  seems  possible  that  John  Knox,  already 
forty  years  of  age,  and  still  unknown,  might  never 
have  taken  part  in  public  affairs.  A  quarter  of  a 
century  later,  in  November  1572,  the  reformer  of  a 
kingdom  was  dying  in  his  house  at  the  Netherbow 


JOHN  KNOX  255 

Port  of  Edinburgh.  As  he  lay,  to  all  appearance 
asleep,  he  was  often  heard  repeating  to  himself  the 
words,  "  Come,  Lord  Jesus  ;  sweet  Jesus,  into  Thy 
hands  I  commend  my  spirit."  The  text  from  the 
Psalms  was  that  used  by  Wishart.  But,  in  all 
external  circumstances,  the  deaths  of  the  two 
men  were  widely  different.  The  cause  for  which 
Wishart  suffered  had  triumphed.  Knox's  iron 
will,  passionate  eloquence,  and  grim  self-reliance 
had  swept  aside  the  leadership  of  the  sovereign 
and  the  nobility.  He  had  carried  the  people  with 
him,  and  Scotland  had  for  ever  broken  with  Rome. 
One  side  of  Knox's  work  remained  incomplete. 
Episcopacy  was  not  abolished  ;  for  political  reasons 
it  was  revived.  The  complete  organisation  of  the 
Scottish  Church  was  perfected  on  the  Presbyterian 
model  by  Andrew  Melville  (Second  Book  of  Dis- 
cipline, 1581-92).  i\t  Knox's  death,  indeed,  the 
final  triumph  of  the  Presbyterian  cause  still  seemed 
distant  and  uncertain.  It  was  the  year  of  St. 
Bartholomew,  and  it  was  to  the  Psalms  that  men 
turned  for  the  expression  of  their  sorrow.  James 
Melville,  a  nephew  of  the  Presbyterian  leader, 
and  at  that  time  passing  through  his  course  of 
philosophy  at  the  University  of  St.  Andrews,  notes 
in  his  Diary,  that  "  The  primarius  (James  Wilkie), 
a  guid,  peaceable,  sweit  auld  man,  wha  luiffed  me 
Weill,  .  .  .  causit  sing,  commownlie  the  44  and 
79  Psalms,  quhilk  I  lernit  par  coeur,  for  that  was  the 
yeir  of  the  bludie  massacres  in  France,  and  grait 
troubles  in  this  countrey."  Already  the  singing 
of  psalms,  the  only  part  of  ordinary  worship  in 
which  the  people  directly  joined,  was  becoming 
popular.  Melville  has  recorded  their  introduction 
in  1570  at  Montrose.  "The  Lard  of  Done,"  he 
says,  "  of  his  charitie  interteined  a  blind  man,  wha 
haid  a  singular  guid  voice  ;  him  he  causit  the 
doctor  of  our  scholl  teatche  the  wholl  Psalmes  in 
miter,  with  the  tones   thairof,  and  sing  tham  in 


256       THE  SCOTTISH  COVENANTERS 

the  Kirk  ;  be  heiring  of  whome  I  was  sa  delyted, 
that  I  lernit  manie  of  the  Psalmes  and  tones  thairof 
in  miter  quhilk  I  haiff  thought  ever  sen  syne  a  grait 
blessing  and  comfort." 

In  many  of  the  vicissitudes  of  the  struggle,  in 
which  James  Melville  took  a  leading  part,  he  found 
in  the  Psalms  the  best  expression  of  his  emotions. 
The  eight  texts  with  which  his  Diary  begins,  are 
all  taken  from  the  Psalms,  and  in  his  pages  are 
recorded  two  notable  instances  of  their  use.  Among 
the  staunchest  champions  of  the  Presbyterian 
cause  was  John  Durie,  Minister  first  at  Leith,  then 
in  Edinburgh.  He  had  been  suspended  for  his 
plain  speaking  against  the  Duke  of  Lennox.  But 
in  1582  he  returned  to  his  "  awin  flok  of  Edin- 
bruche."  The  whole  town  gathered  to  meet  him 
at  the  Netherbow  Port,  and  "  goeing  upe  the  streit, 
with  bear  heads  and  laud  voices,  sang  to  the  praise 
of  God,  and  testifeing  of  grait  joy  and  consolation, 
the  124th  Psalm,  '  Now  Israel  may  say,  and  that 
trewlie,'  etc.,  till  heavin  and  erthe  resonndit." 
So  determined  was  the  attitude  of  the  vast  con- 
course of  people,  that  the  duke,  when  he  heard 
the  noise  and  saw  the  crowd,  tore  his  beard  for 
anger,  and  hastened  out  of  the  city.  Two  years 
later,  Melville  himself  was  a  fugitive,  flying  for  his 
life.  By  yet  another  change  in  the  struggle,  he 
was,  in  1585,  enabled  to  return  to  Scotland.  As  he 
and  his  fellow-exiles  reached  Alnwick  on  their 
homeward  journey,  rejoicing  that  the  "  bountiful! 
and  gratius  hand  of  our  God  was  with  us,"  they 
were  many  times  constrained  to  sing  Psalm  cxxvi., 
"  When  the  Lord  turned  again  the  captivity  of 
Sion,"  and  other  psalms  of  the  same  character. 

Neither  of  the  Melvilles  died  in  Scotland .  Andrew 
Melville  died  at  Sedan,  James  at  Berwick.  But 
as,  during  his  troubled  life,  James  Melville  had 
found  in  the  Psalms  the  expression  of  his  sorrow, 
his  gratitude,  or  his  triumph,  so,  at  the  moment  of 


JAMES  MELVILLE  257 

death,  they  brought  him  their  message  of  strength 
and  courage .  The  pain  of  his  disease  was ' '  wonderful! 
vehement  "  ;  yet  he  was  content,  thinking  "of  the 
sight  of  the  face  of  God  in  glorie  ;  rehearsing  that 
verse  of  the  i6th  Psalm  (verse  12),  '  Thow  wilt 
schaw  me  the  pathe  of  lyffe  ;  in  thy  sicht  are  fulness 
of  all  joyes,  at  thy  right  hand  is  the  plentie  of 
pleasures  for  evir.'  "  As  the  pain  and  weakness 
increased,  he  "  comforteth  himselff  with  sundrie 
speeches  out  of  the  Psalmes,  quhilk  he  rehearsit  in 
Hebrew  ;  as,  nameli  ane  speich  out  of  Psalm  4th 
(verse  7), '  Lord,  lift  up  the  lyght  of  thy  countenance 
upon  me.'  Psalm  27th,  verse  i,  '  The  Lord  is  my 
light  and  my  salvatione,  quhat  can  I  fear?  '  Psalm 
23rd  (verse  4),  '  Albeit  I  walkit  through  the  valley 
of  the  shadow  of  death,  yet  will  I  fear  none  evill, 
because  God  is  with  me.'  The  candell  being  behind 
his  bak,  he  desyred  that  it  should  be  brought  before 
him,  that  he  might  sie  to  die.  Be  occasionne 
quhairof  that  pairt  of  the  Scripture  wes  rememberit, 
*  Light  aryses  to  the  righteous  in  the  middes  of 
darknes  '  (Ps.  cxii.,  verse  4)  ;  and  Psalm  xviii., 
verse  28,  '  The  Lord  will  lighten  my  candell  ;  He 
will  inlighten  my  darknes.'  " 

In  spite,  and  partly  in  consequence,  of  the  effort 
of  James  i.  to  re-establish  Episcopacy,  and  to  assimi- 
late the  Church  in  Scotland  with  that  in  England, 
the  Presbyterian  Kirk,  with  its  General  Assembly, 
had  become  the  organ  of  the  Scottish  people,  its 
Parliament,  its  press,  its  platform,  and  something 
more.  It  was  their  "  Mount  Zion  in  Jerusalem," 
the  "  joy  of  the  whole  earth,"  the  "  city  of  the  great 
King."  When,  therefore,  in  1637,  Charles  i.  at- 
tempted to  introduce  a  book  of  Canons  and  a  Liturgy 
framed  on  the  English  model,  he  outraged  some  of 
the  deepest  feelings  of  the  nation.  A  wave  of 
excitement  swept  over  Scotland.  Thrilled  with 
solemn  enthusiasm,  the  people  had  witnessed  the 
signature   of  the   National   Covenant   on   the   last 


258        THE  SCOTTISH  COVENANTERS 

day  of  February  1638,  in  the  Greyfriars  Church  of 
Edinburgh.  Rallying  to  the  cry  of  "  Christ's  Crown 
and  Covenant,"  disciplined  by  the  genius  of  Alex- 
ander Leslie,  and  obeying  the  "  old  little  crooked 
soldier,"  as  if  he  were  "  the  Great  Soleyman  " 
himself,  the  Covenanters  easily  wrung  from  Charles  i. 
the  concession  of  all  their  demands.  The  "  blue 
banner  "  had  triumphed.  But  .Scottish  liberties 
were  still  in  peril,  if  the  king  prevailed  against  the 
English  Parliament.  In  1643,  the  Solemn  League 
and  Covenant  bound  the  Presbyterians  of  the 
North  and  the  Puritans  of  the  South  in  a  firm 
alliance  to  root  out  popery  and  prelacy  from  the 
three  kingdoms. 

The  House  of  Stuart  was  slow  to  take  warning 
from  experience.  On  May  29,  1660,  Charles  11.  was 
restored  to  the  throne,  and  the  dark  times  swept 
over  Scotland  with  one  giant  stride.  While  the 
guns  roared  from  the  castle  of  Edinburgh,  to  cele- 
brate the  national  thanksgiving,  Donald  Cargill 
foretold  Charles's  future  from  the  pulpit.  "  Who- 
ever of  the  Lord's  people,"  he  said,  "  are  this  day 
rejoicing,  their  joy  will  be  like  the  crackling  of 
thorns  under  a  pot  ;  he  will  be  the  woefuUest  sight 
that  ever  the  poor  Church  of  Scotland  saw.  Wo, 
wo,  wo  to  him  ;  his  name  shall  stink  while  the 
world  stands,  for  treachery,  tyranny,  and  leachery." 
Thus  began,  in  mingled  joy  and  foreboding,  "  that 
never-to-be-forgotten,  unheard-of  twenty-eight  years 
of  reigning  tyrants,  and  raging  tyranny  of  Prelatical 
Protestants  upon  Presbyterian  Protestants." 

Cargill's  predictions  were  soon  verified.  The 
"  Drunken  Parliament  "  of  1661  imposed  a  new  oath 
of  allegiance  to  the  sovereign  as  supreme  over  all 
persons  and  in  all  causes,  exacted  it  from  all  minis- 
ters presented  to  benefices,  pronounced  assemblies 
to  be  unlawful,  prohibited  the  renewal  of  the  Solemn 
League  and  Covenant,  and,  by  an  "  Act  Recissory," 
repealed  the  whole  legislation  of  Scotland  for  the 


ARCHBISHOP  SHARP  259 

past  twenty  years.  In  the  following  year  Episco- 
pacy was  established  in  Scotland,  and  James  Sharp, 
who  was  acting  in  London  as  agent  for  the  Presby- 
terian ministers,  was  ordained,  and  consecrated 
Archbishop  of  St.  Andrews.  The  ballad-mongers 
of  the  day  expressed  the  popular  detestation  of  the 
new  primate's  treachery  : 

"  Most  viper-like,   I  in  the  Kirk 
My  mother's  bowels  rent  ; 
And  did  cast  out  those  zealous  men 
Whose  money  I  had  spent." 

Nor  were  Sharp's  colleagues  men  of  high  reputation  ; 
with  the  single  exception  of  Leighton,  who  was  wont 
to  say  that  the  Psalter  should  lie  like  myrrh  in  the 
human  heart.  From  these  bishops,  all  ministers 
who  had  entered  on  their  livings  since  1649  were  to 
receive  collation  ;  those  who  refused  to  do  so  were 
to  be  ejected.  Rather  than  submit  to  episcopal 
rule  and  the  revival  of  patronage,  nearly  four 
hundred  ministers  gave  up  their  churches  and  houses. 
Their  places  were  filled  by  curates,  "  mostly  young 
men  from  the  northern  parts,  raw,  and  without  any 
stock  of  reading  or  gifts."  Most  of  the  "  outed  " 
ministers  had  endeared  themselves  to  their  flocks 
by  years  of  faithful  service.  The  parting  of  Welsh, 
for  instance,  from  the  people  of  Irongray,  described 
by  Blackader,  himself  an  eye-witness  of  the  scene, 
shows  the  hold  which  men  of  his  character  had 
gained  on  the  hearts  of  their  congregations.  "  There 
was,"  he  says,  "  great  sorrowing  and  outcrying  of 
the  poor  multitude  beside  the  water  of  Cluden,  when 
he  (Welsh)  was  to  take  horse.  It  was  with  great 
difficulty  he  got  from  among  them,  who  were  almost 
distracted,  and  cried  most  ruefully,  with  tears. 
But  he  being  resolute,  would  not  be  detained  ;  and 
after  two  or  three  of  the  ministers  had  knelt  down 
and  prayed,  he  got  to  horse,  the  people  still  holding 
him.  The  ministers  and  he  rode  quickly  through 
the  water,  to  win  from  among  them  ; — many,  both 
18 


26o        THE  SCOTTISH  COVENANTERS 

men  and  women,  brak  in  on  foot  after  him,  and 
followed  on  the  road  a  good  space,  with  bitter 
weeping  and  lamentation." 

The  example  quoted  does  not  stand  alone.  Con- 
gregations, as  a  rule,  remained  faithful  to  their 
former  pastors.  Dispossessed  ministers,  though 
banished  from  their  parishes,  held  their  services  in  the 
neighbourhood  :  the  field-meetings  were  thronged, 
the  churches  deserted.  Determined  to  effect  their 
object,  the  Government  framed  another  Act  (1663), 
familiarly  known  as  the  "  Bishops'  Drag  Net." 
Ministers  who  preached  without  episcopal  sanction, 
parishioners  who  were  absent  from  "  the  ordinary- 
meetings  of  divine  worship,  in  their  own  parish 
church  on  the  Lord's  Day,"  were  guilty  of  sedi- 
tious acts,  punishable  by  fines  and  imprisonment. 
Soldiers,  drafted  into  the  south  and  west  of  Scotland 
to  compel  attendance  at  public  worship  according 
to  Episcopalian  forms,  quartered  themselves  upon 
the  recusants,  and  were  encouraged  in  every  violence 
and  licence.  To  enforce  the  legislation  "  for  the 
peace  and  order  of  the  Church,  and  in  behalf  of  the 
Government  thereof  by  archbishops  and  bishops," 
a  Court  of  High  Commission  was  appointed  (1664). 
Before  this  tribunal  were  summoned  hundreds  of 
persons,  scarcely  one  of  whom  escaped  punishment, 
whether  by  fines,  branding,  scourging,  imprison- 
ment, or  exile.  The  Court  called  before  it  whom  it 
chose,  heard  no  arguments,  asked  few  questions, 
and  almost  always  condemned.  It  was  compared 
to  the  lion's  den,  into  which  led  many  tracks,  but 
from  which  none  returned. 

Throughout  the  Lowlands,  discontent  deepened 
and  widened,  till,  goaded  to  desperation,  the  people 
rose  in  arms.  Their  open  resistance  in  the  field 
was  shortlived.  But,  for  twenty-five  years,  they 
maintained  an  unequal  struggle  against  over- 
whelming odds,  defending  their  convictions  with  a 
constancy  which  has  been  rarely  equalled  in  history. 


COVENANTERS  AND  THE  PSALMS     261 

Whatever  were  the  fauhs  of  the  '*  Hill  Folk,"  the 
"  Wild  Whigs,"  the  "Remnant,"  or  the  "  Cameron- 
ians,"  their  tenacity  of  purpose  in  suffering,  danger, 
and  death,  commands  the  admiration  of  those  who 
most  strongly  condemn  them  as  narrow  and  ex- 
clusive.    The  Lowland  peasant  is  justly  proud  of 

"  the  tales 
Of  persecution  and  the  Covenant 
Whose  echo  rings  through  Scotland  to  this  hour." 

As  with  the  Cevenols,  so  with  the  Covenanters. 
The  Psalms  were  the  inspiration  of  a  popular  move- 
ment. To  the  strained  senses  of  the  peasantry 
were  manifested  signs  of  the  future.  Mysterious 
apparitions  disturbed  the  solitude  of  the  moors, 
unearthly  chantings  of  the  Psalms  broke  their 
silence.  On  "  Clyde  side,  east  of  Glasgow,"  a 
shadowy  throng  of  men  and  women  seemed  to 
gather  round  a  tent,  and  Psalm  xciii.  was  chanted 
with  such  celestial  sweetness  that  all  who  heard  the 
strains  stood  motionless  till  they  were  ended.  Thus 
were  revealed  the  future  triumphs  of  field-conven- 
ticles. "  At  Craigmad,  between  Falkhill  and  Moran- 
side,"  the  hills  were  crowded  with  ghostly  wor- 
shippers, who  were  singing  Psalm  cxxi.,  and  among 
them  appeared  a  milk-white  horse,  with  a  blood- 
red  saddle  on  its  back.  Thus  were  portended  the 
preaching  of  the  Gospel  and  the  persecution  that 
was  to  follow.  When  the  crisis  came,  it  was  with  a 
psalm  that  the  Covenanters  faced  General  Dalzell 
at  Rullion  Green.  With  a  psalm,  they  routed 
Claverhouse  at  Drumclog.  Supported  by  a  psalm, 
Hugh  M'Kail,  Donald  Cargill,  James  Renwick, 
Isabel  Alison,  Marion  Harvie,  Margaret  Wilson,  and 
a  host  of  other  heroes  and  heroines  of  the  Covenant, 
met  torture  or  a  violent  death.  The  Psalms  were 
the  daily  support  of  the  charmed  life  of  Alexander 
Peden.  They  cheered  the  captives  on  the  Bass 
Rock  or  in  the  dungeons  of  Dunottar,  and  solaced 
their   weary   imprisonment      It   was   the    Psalms, 


262       THE  SCOTTISH  COVENANTERS 

again,  that  encouraged  others  to  endure  a  still 
harder  fate,  as  they  toiled  in  exile  and  slavery 
among  the  rice-fields  and  sugar  plantations  of  the 
New  World.  True  to  the  spirit  of  the  Covenanters, 
Scott  has  embodied  in  his  novels  the  influence  of  the 
Psalms.  It  was  a  psalm  that  nerved  Mause 
Headrigg  to  leap  her  horse  over  the  wall  (Ps.  xviii., 
verse  29) ;  with  a  psalm,  the  Laird  of  Langcale 
summoned  the  garrison  of  Tillietudlem  to  open  the 
gates  of  the  castle  (Ps.  xxiv.,  verse  7), 

"Ye  gates,  lift  up  your  heads!    ye  doors, 
Doors  that  do  last  for  aye, 
Be  lifted  up "; 

it  was  a  psalm  (xxxvii.,  verses  16,  25)  that  the 
daughter  of  a  Covenanter,  Jeanie  Deans,  marked 
with  her  "  kylevine  pen  "  for  her  lover,  Reuben 
Butler,  on  the  eve  of  her  adventurous  journey  to 
plead  for  her  sister's  life  ;  it  was  a  psalm  (xlii., 
verses  14,  15,  and  xliii.,  verses  5,  6)  that  she  re- 
peated in  her  hour  of  peril,  when  she  was  at  the 
mercy  of  desperate  ruffians  on  Gunnerby  Hill. 

Armed  resistance  began  with  the  Pentland  Rising 
in  November  1666.  The  "  honest  zealous  handful," 
as  Patrick  Walker  calls  them,  involved  in  an  acci- 
dental scuffle  with  the  soldiers  at  Dairy,  near  Dum- 
fries, drifted,  without  plan  or  leaders,  into  in- 
surrection. At  Lanark,  as  they  marched  towards 
Edinburgh,  they  were  fifteen  hundred  strong.  But 
only  a  few  were  armed  with  swords,  pistols,  or 
muskets  ;  scythes,  forks,  staves,  were  the  weapons 
of  the  rest.  Closely  followed  by  Dalzell  at  the  head 
of  three  thousand  well-appointed  troops,  struggling 
through  snowdrifts,  spent  with  hunger  and  fatigue, 
disappointed  of  help  from  the  Lothians,  they 
staggered  back  from  Edinburgh  into  the  Pentland 
Hills.  Their  numbers  had  dwindled  to  nine  hundred 
men.  At  RuUion  Green  they  were  attacked  by 
Dalzell's    troops.     Hopelessly    overmatched,    they 


HUGH  M'KAIL  263 

yet  made  a  gallant  fight.  Chanting  their  despairing 
appeal  to  God  in  the  words  of  Psalm  Ixxiv., 

"  O  God,  why  hast  Thou  cast  us  off  ? 
Is  it  for  evermore  ? 
Against  Thy  pasture-sheep  why  doth 
Thine  anger  smoke  so  sore  ?  " 

they  met  and  defeated  a  charge  of  the  enemy's  horse. 
It  was  not  till  dusk  that  they  were  finally  dispersed. 
Of  the  prisoners,  some  were  executed,  some  im- 
prisoned, some  shipped  to  the  plantations.  The 
grave  of  those  who  were  killed  in  the  fight  is  marked 
by  a  stone ,  inscribed  with  rugged  lines  beginning  thus : 

"  A  cloud  of  witnesses  he  here 
Who  for  Christ's  interest  did  appear,"  etc.  etc. 

Among  the  victims  of  the  vengeance  which  the 
Government  executed  upon  the  insurgents  was  Hugh 
M'Kail,  a  young  man  of  twenty-six,  the  prototype 
of  Scott's  MacBriar.  Well  connected  and  well 
educated,  he  is  supposed  to  have  incurred  the 
personal  hatred  of  the  primate,  to  whom  he  had 
given  the  name  of  Judas.  Appeals  to  save  his  life 
were  made  in  vain.  Tortured  in  the  boot — yet 
forgetting  his  shattered  leg,  as  he  jestingly  said,  in 
fear  for  his  neck — he  solaced  his  imprisonment  by 
writing  Latin  elegiacs.  Under  sentence  of  death,  it 
was  in  the  Psalms  that  he  found  strength.  On  the 
evening  before  his  execution  in  the  Grassmarket,  he 
read  Psalm  xvi.,  "  Preserve  me,  O  God,  for  in  thee 
have  I  put  my  trust."  The  next  day,  Decem- 
ber 22,  1666,  at  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  he  was 
carried  to  the  scaffold.  There  he  sang  part  of 
Psalm  xxxi.,  including  the  6th  verse,  using  the  old 
metrical  rendering  : 

"  Into  Thy  hands  I  do  commit 
My  spirit  ;    for  Thou  art  He, 
O  Thou,   Jehovah,  God  of  truth, 
Who  hast  redeemed  me." 

Inspired  by  the  same  words  which  in  the  moment  of 


364       THE  SCOTTISH  COVENANTERS 

death  had  sustained  generations  of  the  hated"  Papists 
and  Prelatists,"  he  broke  into  the  impassioned 
anthem  of  triumph,  often  repeated  or  imitated  by 
his  fellow-sufferers.  "  Now  I  leave  off  to  speak  any 
more  to  creatures,  and  turn  my  speech  to  Thee,  0 
Lord  !  Now  I  begin  my  intercourse  wdth  God, 
which  shall  never  be  broken  off.  Farewell  father 
and  mother,  friends  and  relations  !  farewell  the 
world  and  all  delights  !  farewell  meat  and  drink  ! 
farewell  sun,  and  moon,  and  stars  !  Welcome  God 
and  Father  !  Welcome  sweet  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Mediator  of  the  New  Covenant  !  Welcome  blessed 
Spirit  of  grace,  God  of  all  consolation  !  Welcome 
glory  !  Welcome  eternal  hfe  !  Welcome  death  !  " 
With  the  execution  of  Hugh  M'Kail,  the  Govern- 
ment seemed  satisfied.  For  some  months  after  the 
suppression  of  the  Rising,  moderate  counsels  pre- 
vailed. But  gradually,  as  the  necessity  of  crushing 
field-conventicles  seemed  more  urgent,  the  perse- 
cution grew  hotter.  The  country  was  devastated. 
"  It  was  better,"  said  Lauderdale,  "  that  the  West 
bore  nothing  but  windle-straws  and  laverocks  than 
that  it  should  bear  rebels  to  the  king."  Preachers 
and  hearers  alike  were  dogged  by  spies.  Death 
was  the  penalty  for  preaching  ;  fines,  imprison- 
ment, transportation,  slavery,  were  the  punishments 
inflicted  upon  hearers.  The  remotest  caves  and 
dens  of  the  upland  districts  of  Galloway,  Nithsdale, 
Ayr,  and  Clydesdale,  were  tenanted  by  hunted 
ministers.  There  lurked  gaunt  "  Wanderers,"  in 
whose  eyes  gleamed  the  grey  light  which  flickers 
on  the  borders  of  enthusiasm  and  madness — with 
one  hand  gripping  the  hilts  of  their  shabbies,  with 
the  other  clasping  their  Bibles  to  their  bosoms. 
Their  surrender  of  their  souls  into  God's  keeping 
was  absolute,  their  realisation  of  His  Presence  vivid 
and  intense,  their  conviction  of  the  justice  of  their 
cause  so  absorbing  as  to  foster,  not  the  serenity, 
but  the  fatalism  of  religion.     As  they  pored  over  the 


THE  FIELD-CONVENTICLES  265 

Scriptures,  alone  in  the  wild  solitudes  of  nature, 
stung  by  memories  of  wrong,  in  daily  expectation  of 
torture  and  death,  confronted  by  dispensations  of 
Heaven  which  hourly  seemed  more  frowning  and 
mysterious,  their  faith  grew  savage  in  its  earnestness, 
vindictive  in  its  zeal,  dark  with  gloomy  superstition. 
Their  preaching  soared  into  ecstatic  utterance,  and 
all  the  surroundings  of  field-worship  heightened  its 
effect.  By  day  the  gathering  mist,  by  night  the  fall 
of  darkness  or  the  solemn  starry  skies,  the  mono- 
tonous solitude  of  the  moors  running  up  into  laby- 
rinths of  rolling  hills,  the  silence  broken  only  by  the 
melancholy  cry  of  the  plover,  the  armed  sentries 
posted  on  the  hills,  the  imminence  of  ever-present 
danger — attuned  the  minds  of  their  hearers  to 
rhapsodies  of  faith,  calls  to  penitence,  experiences 
of  Satanic  agency,  bursts  of  prophecy,  fierce  de- 
nunciations of  vengeance. 

In  his  "  Night-hymn  of  the  Cameronians,"  Moir 
lays  stress  on  the  characteristic  confidence  in  God's 
protection,  which  field-conventicles  held  under  such 
conditions  naturally  encouraged  : 

"  Ho  !    plaided  watcher  of  the  hill. 
What  of  the  night  ?    what  of  the  night  ? 

The  winds  are  lown,  the  woods  are  still. 
The  countless  stars  are  sparkling  bright  ; 
From  out  this  heathery  moorland  glen. 

By  the  shy  wild-fowl  only  trod, 
We  raise  our  hymn,  unheard  of  men. 
To  Thee — an  omnipresent  God. 

Jehovah  !   though  no  sign  appear, 
Through  earth  an  aimless  path  to  lead. 

We  know,  we  feel.  Thee  ever  near, 
A  present  help  in  time  of  need — 

Near,  as  when,  pointing  out  the  way. 

For  ever  in  the  people's  sight, 
A  pillared  wreath  of  smoke  by  day. 
Which  turned  to  fiery  flame  at  night." 

Etc.  etc. 

The  murder  of  Archbishop  Sharp  on  Magus 
Moor  (May  3,  1679)  gave  the  signal  for  a  renewal 


266       THE  SCOTTISH  COVENANTERS 

of  the  open  struggle  between  the  Covenanters  and 
the  Government.  Fresh  enactments  were  directed 
against  conventicles.  But  "  the  Whigs,"  says 
Wandering  Wilhe,  "  were  as  doure  as  the  Cavaliers 
were  fierce."  At  Drumclog,  on  June  i,  1679,  a 
field-conventicle  was  surprised  by  the  approach  of 
Claverhouse  himself.  The  sentr}^  gave  the  alarm  by 
the  discharge  of  his  musket  ;  the  armed  men  drew 
out  from  the  congregation  of  hearers,  and,  as  they 
moved  down  the  hill  to  meet  the  dragoons,  raised 
their  challenge  to  the  foe  in  the  worda  of  Psalm  Ixxvi . : 

"  In   Judah's  land  God  is  well  known, 
His  name's  in  Israel  great  ; 
In  Salem  is  his  tabernacle  ; 
In  Zion  is  his  seat. 

There  arrows  of  the  bow  he  brake, 

The  shield,  the  sword,  the  war, 
More  glorious  thou  than  hills  of  prey, 

More  excellent  art  far." 

The  struggle  was  soon  over.  The  dragoons  broke 
and  fled.  Claverhouse  himself,  "  proof  against 
lead,"  was  saved  by  his  gallant  roan,  which  carried 
him  off  the  field,  though  its  "  guts  hung  out  half 
an  ell,"  from  a  pitchfork  thrust  in  its  belly.  The 
Covenanters  spared  the  lives  of  their  prisoners.  But 
this  mercy  was  condemned  by  Sir  Robert  Hamilton, 
who  urged  them  to  give  no  quarter  to  Babel's  brats, 
and  supported  his  advice,  like  Calvin,  by  quoting 
Psalm  cxxxvii.,  verses  8,  9.  In  this  same  leniency, 
Patrick  Walker  finds  a  reason  for  the  ultimate 
failure  of  the  Covenanting  cause . 

"  After  the  Lord,"  so  he  wTites,  "  gave  us  the 
victory  over  Clavers  and  his  party  at  Drumclog, 
anno  1679,  we  behaved  not  as  persons  that  were 
fighting  the  Lord's  battles  :  but,  instead  of  pursuing 
the  victory  that  God  wonderfully  put  in  our  hands, 
and  sanctifying  the  Lord  of  Hosts  in  our  hearts  and 
before  the  people  by  giving  Him  the  praise,  did 
greedily  run  upon  the  spoil,  and  took  some  of  the 


BOTHWELL  BRIDGE  267 

enemy  prisoners,  and  gave  them  quarter,  tho' 
guilty  of  death,  and  so  brought  ourselves  under  the 
curse  of  doing  the  work  of  the  Lord  deceitfully,  by 
withholding  our  sword  from  shedding  of  their 
blood  ;  and  yet  we  refused  to  be  convinced  that  our 
sparing  of  the  lives  of  these,  whom  God  has  ap- 
pointed to  utter  destruction,  is  one  of  the  causes  why 
our  lives  go  for  theirs." 

The  insurrection  which  had  flamed  up  so  sud- 
denly was  extinguished  at  Bothwell  Bridge,  June  22, 
1679.  The  battle  was  fought  on  Sunday,  and,  forty 
miles  distant,  Peden's  hearers  waited  for  a  sermon. 
"  Let  the  people,"  he  said  "go  to  their  prayers  ; 
for  me,  I  neither  can  nor  will  preach  any  this  day  ; 
for  our  friends  are  fallen  and  fled  before  the  enemy 
at  HamiltowTi  ;  and  they  are  bagging  and  hashing 
them  down,  and  their  blood  is  running  like  water." 
No  effort  was  again  made  by  the  Covenanters  to 
put  an  armed  force  into  the  field.  But  their  spirit 
remained  unbroken.  Their  resistance,  indeed,  as- 
sumed a  more  determined  form.  A  year  to  the  day 
after  Bothwell  Bridge,  twenty  armed  horsemen  rode 
into  Sanquhar,  formed  a  circle  round  the  market 
cross,  and  two  of  their  number,  Richard  and  Michael 
Cameron,  dismounted.  A  psalm  was  sung,  a  prayer 
offered,  and  a  "  Declaration  "  read  disowning 
Charles  11.  as  a  tyrant  and  usurper,  and,  "  under  the 
standard  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  Captain  of  our 
salvation,  declaring  war  upon  the  king."  Hence- 
forward there  could  be  no  turning  back,  either  for 
the  Government  or  for  the  "  Remnant  "  who 
approved  the  Declaration,  which  renounced  allegi- 
ance to  the  king,  defied  his  laws,  and  proclaimed  the 
forfeiture  of  his  throne. 

Richard  Cameron  did  not  long  survive  his  audaci- 
ous act.  On  July  18,  1680,  he  preached  his  last 
sermon,  "  upon  the  Kype-ridge  in  Cfidsdale," 
choosing  for  his  text  Psalm  xlvi.,  verse  10,  "  Be 
still,  then,  and  know  that  I  am  God."     Four  days 


268        THE  SCOTTISH  COVENANTERS 

later,  Thursday,  July  22,  he  and  his  companions, 
were  hiding  "  in  the  east  end  of  Airs-moss,  a  very 
desert  place,"  when  they  were  surprised  by  Bruce 
of  Earlshall,  with  one  hundred  and  twenty  men, 
well  armed  and  mounted.  The  Covenanters  re- 
sisted stoutly.  Richard  Cameron  was  killed.  His 
head  and  hands,"  hagged  off  with  a  dirk,  "and  thrown 
into  a  sack,  were  carried  to  Edinburgh  to  be  fixed 
upon  the  City  Port.  They  were  first  shown  to 
Cameron's  father,  then  a  prisoner  at  the  Tolbooth, 
and  he  was  asked  if  he  knew  to  whom  they  belonged. 
The  old  man,  kissing  the  brow  of  his  fair-haired  son, 
said,  "  I  know  them,  I  know  them  :  they  are  my 
son's,  my  dear  son's."  Then,  with  the  same  sub- 
mission to  God's  judgment  which,  nine  centuries 
earlier,  was  shown  by  the  Emperor  Maurice,  and  in 
words  which  recall  Psalm  xxiii.,  verse  6,  he  added, 
"  It  is  the  Lord  ;  good  is  the  will  of  the  Lord,  who 
cannot  wrong  me  nor  mine,  but  has  made  goodness 
and  mercy  to  follow  us  all  our  days." 

Cameron's  successor  in  the  leadership  of  the 
stricter  Covenanters,  or  Cameronians,  was  Donald 
Cargill,  according  to  Wodrow,  the  only  remaining 
preacher  at  field-conventicles.  He  had  taken  part 
in  the  vSanquhar  Declaration.  Now,  in  September 
1680,  at  Torwood,  he  had  publicly  excommunicated 
the  King,  the  Duke  of  York,  the  Duke  of  Monmouth, 
and  others.  He  was  a  marked  man.  A  reward  of 
five  thousand  marks  was  set  on  his  head  as  "  a  most 
seditious  preacher,"  and  a  "  villainous  and  fanatical 
conspirator."  His  escapes  were  narrow,  both  on 
foot  and  on  horseback.  But  one  of  his  hearers  re- 
marked to  him  that  when  his  danger  was  sorest, 
then  he  preached  and  prayed  his  best.  He  replied 
by  saying,  half  to  himself,  as  was  his  habit,  "  The 
Lord  is  my  strength  and  song,  and  is  become 
my  salvation"  (Ps.  cxviii.,  verse  14).  At  last, 
July  II,  1 68 1 ,  he  was  captured,  and  hurried,  his  legs 
tied  hard  under  his  horse's  belly,  to  Glasgow,  and 


DONALD  CARGILL  369 

thence  to  Edinburgh.  While  in  prison  he  wrote  a 
letter  to  James  Skene,  the  closing  sentence  of  which 
contains  a  metaphor  now  familiar  to  the  world 
through  Tennyson's  lines.  "  The  God  of  mercies," 
he  writes, "  grant  you  a  full  gale  and  a  fair  entry  into 
His  kingdom,  which  may  carry  sweetly  and  swiftly 
over  the  bar,  that  you  find  not  the  rub  of  death." 
He  was  executed  at  the  Cross  of  Edinburgh,  July  27, 
1681.  On  the  scaffold  he  sang  his  favourite  psalm, 
Psalm  cxviii.,  from  the  i6th  verse  to  the  end  ;  and 
his  last  words  were,  "  Welcome  Father,  Son,  and 
Holy  Ghost !  Into  Thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit." 
As,  one  by  one,  his  companions  were  killed  or  cap- 
tured, Alexander  Peden  (1626-86)  alone  seemed  to 
bear  a  charmed  life.  He  is  the  Prophet  of  the  Cove- 
nant, and,  in  some  respects,  its  most  romantic  figure. 
Ejected  in  1663  from  his  Galloway  parish,  outlawed 
for  his  complicity  in  the  Pentland  Rising,  imprisoned 
on  the  Bass  Rock  (1673-7),  banished  to  Virginia, 
and  conveyed  on  the  outward  voyage  to  London, 
w^here  he  was  for  some  unknown  reason  liberated,  he 
spent  his  remaining  years  in  Ireland  or  Scotland, 
"  going,"  as  he  says,  "  from  the  one  bloody  land 
to  the  other  bloody  land."  Dodged  by  spies,  and 
hunted  by  dragoons,  he  yet  died  m  his  bed.  A  man 
of  great  personal  strength  and  activity,  his  escapes 
were  so  hairbreadth  as  to  seem  miraculous.  Peden 
himself  would  have  been  at  no  loss  for  an  explana- 
tion. So  long  as  God  had  work  for  him  no  harm 
could  befall  him.  Dogs  snuffed  at  the  entrance  of 
the  cave  in  which  he  was  hiding,  and  still  he  was 
not  discovered.  Soldiers  stabbed  the  beds  or  heaps 
of  unthreshed  corn  under  which  he  lay  concealed  ; 
yet  they  touched  him  not.  Through  bogs,  in  which 
his  pursuers  were  drowned,  he  knew  and  found  the 
path  of  safety.  Once,  as  he  lay  under  a  bank,  a 
dragoon's  horse  grazed  his  head  with  his  hoof,  pin- 
ning his  bonnet  deep  into  the  clay,  and  leaving  him 
uninjured.     In   his   mind  the   words,   "  Snow  and 


270       THE  SCOTTISH  COVENANTERS 

vapours,  wind  and  storm,  fulfilling  his  word  "  (Ps. 
cxlviii.,  verse  8),  were  ever  present ;  and,  again  and 
again,  the  Lord  heard  his  prayer,  and  answered  him 
in  the  day  of  his  distress.  Escaping  to  Scotland 
from  Carrickfergus  with  a  number  of  fellow-sufferers, 
his  boat  was  becalmed  and  in  danger  of  capture. 
"Waving  his  hand  to  the  west,  from  whence  he  desired 
the  wind,  he  said, '  Lord,  give  us  a  loof-fuU  of  wind  ; 
fill  the  sails,  Lord,  and  give  us  a  fresh  gale,  and  let  us 
have  a  swift  and  safe  passage  over  to  the  bloody 
land,  come  of  us  what  will.'  "  Before  he  ended  his 
prayer,  the  flapping  sails  filled  like  brown  bladders, 
and  he  and  his  comrades  were  saved.  More  than 
once  a  mist,  gathering  at  his  prayer,  hid  him  from 
pursuit.  On  one  occasion,  horse  and  foot  chased  him 
so  closely  that  escape  seemed  hopeless.  If  God  saved 
them  not,  he  and  his  companions  were  dead  men. 
"  Then  he  began  and  said,'  Lord,  it  is  Thy  enemies' 
day,  hour,  and  power;  twine  them  about  the  hill, 
Lord,  and  cast  the  lap  of  Thy  cloak  o'er  old  Sandy  and 
thir  (these)  poor  things,  and  save  us  this  one  time  ; 
and  we'll  keep  it  in  remembrance,  and  tell  it  to  the 
commendation  of  Thy  goodness,  pity,  and  compassion, 
what  Thou  didst  for  us  at  such  a  time.'  "  And,  as  he 
prayed,  the  mist  covered  the  hills  and  the  fugitives. 
In  all  his  wanderings  and  escapes,  the  Psalms 
were  to  him  a  perennial  source  of  strength.  Patrick 
Walker  relates  that  he  had  "  preached  in  a 
shield  or  sheep-house  in  a  desert-place,"  upon  a 
Sabbath  night.  "  When  ended,  he  and  those  that 
were  with  him  lay  down  in  the  sheep-house,  and  got 
some  sleep  :  he  rose  early,  and  went  up  to  the  burn- 
side  and  stayed  long  :  when  he  came  in  to  them, 
he  did  sing  the  32nd  Psalm,  from  the  7th  verse  to 
the  end  ;  when  ended,  he  repeated  the  8th  verse  : 

'  Thou  art  my  hiding-place,  Thou  shalt 
From  trouble  keep  me  free  ; 
Thou  with  songs  of  deliverance 
About  shalt  compass  me  '  ; 


ALEXANDER  PEDEN  271 

saying,  *  These  and  the  following  are  sweet  lines, 
which  I  got  at  the  burn-side  this  morning,  and  we'll 
get  mo'  to-morrow,  and  so  we'll  get  daily  provision: 
He  was  never  behind  with  any  that  put  their  trust  in 
Him,  and  He  will  not  be  in  our  common,  nor  none  who 
needily  depends  on  Him  ;  and  so  we  will  go  on  in 
His  strength,  making  mention  of  His  righteousness 
and  of  His  only.'  " 

A  deep  vein  of  melancholy  traversed  Peden's 
mind.  Yet  his  sympathy,  tenderness,  and  racy 
humour  light  up,  like  glints  of  sunshine,  the  gloom 
of  his  forebodings  of  judgment.  His  pithy  sayings 
bear  his  own  hall-mark  ;  his  keen  insight  into  human 
nature  made  his  nicknames  stick  like  burrs.  His 
intense  realisation  of  God's  abiding  presence  and 
fatherly  care  bred  in  him  a  filial  familiarity  ;  yet 
never,  in  its  simplest  or  homeliest  expressions,  does 
his  language  lose  a  natural  dignity.  Men  so  con- 
stituted by  nature,  so  moulded  by  the  circumstances 
of  their  times, so  fashioned  bytheirownmanner  of  life, 
have  not  only  the  temperament,  but  the  training  of 
the  seer.  The  visions  of  Peden's  fervent  faith, 
painted  with  all  the  force  of  his  picture-making  im- 
agination, were  received  with  awe  by  his  hearers,  who 
trembled  at  the  strange  verification  of  his  predictions. 

Two  specimens  of  his  preaching,  both  given  by 
Walker,  maybe  quoted.  In  both,  the  text  is  taken 
from  the  Psalms.  The  first  illustration  is  from  the 
year  1682,  when  Peden  "  was  in  Kyle  and  preaching 
upon  that  text,  '  The  plowers  plowed  upon  my 
back,  and  made  long  furrows  '  (Ps.  cxxix.,  verse  3) ; 
where  he  said,  '  Would  you  know  who  first  yoked 
this  plough?  It  was  cursed  Cain,  when  he  drew  his 
furrows  so  long  and  so  deep,  that  he  let  out  the  heart- 
blood  of  his  brother  Abel  .  .  .  and  that  plough 
has  and  will  gang  summer  and  winter,  frost  and  fresh- 
weather,  till  the  world's  end  ;  and  at  the  sound  of 
the  last  trumpet,  when  all  are  in  a  flame,  their 
theats  (traces)  will  burn,  and    their  swingle-trees 


272       THE  SCOTTISH  COVENANTERS 

will  fall  to  the  ground  ;  the  plow-men  will  lose  their 
grips  of  the  plough,  and  the  gade-men  will  throw 
away  their  gades  ;  and  then,  O  the  yelhng  and 
skreeching  that  will  be  among  all  his  cursed  seed, 
clapping  their  hands,  and  crying  to  hills  and  moun- 
tains to  cover  them  from  the  face  of  the  Lamb  and 
of  Him  that  sits  upon  the  throne,  for  their  hatred 
of  Him  and  malice  at  His  people  !  '  " 

The  second  illustration  belongs  to  the  year  1685, 
when  he  was  "  preaching  in  the  night-time,  in  a  barn 
at  Carrack,  upon  that  text.  Psalm  Ixviii.,  1,2,'  Let 
God  arise,  and  let  his  enemies  be  scattered  ;  let 
them  also  that  hate  him  flee  before  him.  As  smoke 
is  driven,  so  drive  Thou  them  ' ;  so  insisting  how  the 
enemies  and  haters  of  God  and  godliness  were 
tossed  and  driven  as  smoke  or  chaff,  by  the  wind  of 
God's  vengeance  while  on  earth,  and  that  wind 
would  blow  and  drive  them  all  to  hell  in  the  end  ; 
stooping  down,  there  being  chaff  among  his  feet,  he 
took  a  handful  of  it,  and  said,  '  The  Duke  of  York, 
the  Duke  of  York,  and  now  King  of  Britain,  a  known 
enemy  of  God  and  godliness  ;  it  was  by  the  ven- 
geance of  God  that  he  ever  got  that  name  ;  but  as 
ye  see  me  throw  away  that  chaff,  so  that  the  wind  of 
vengeance  shall  blow  and  drive  him  off  that  throne  ; 
and  he,  nor  no  other  of  that  name,  shall  ever  come 
on  it  again.'  " 

Throughout  the  last  few  years  of  Peden's  life 
the  severity  of  the  Government  towards  the 
Cameronians  increased,  till  it  culminated  in  the 
"  Killing  Times  "  of  1684-5.  Their  bold  repu- 
diation of  the  king's  authority,  coupled  with 
their  declaration  that  his  throne  was  forfeited, 
was  a  political  danger  which  could  not  be  ignored. 
Revolution  was  in  the  air.  A  popular  party  was 
forming  both  in  England  and  Scotland,  and  the 
Government,  making  the  Rye  House  Plot  their 
plea,  struck  hard  against  its  leaders  as  well  as 
against  the  Cameronians. 


PATRICK  HOME  OF  POLWARTH      273 

On  the  purely  political  side,  Baillie  of  Jervis- 
wood,  the  "  Algernon  Sydney  of  Scotland,"  was 
one  of  the  first  and  most  important  victims. 
Condemned  to  death  on  December  24,  1684,  he 
was  hanged  the  same  afternoon  at  the  Market 
Cross  of  Edinburgh,  with  all  the  attendant  bar- 
barities of  an  execution  for  high  treason.  His 
property  was  confiscated  and  forfeited  to  the 
Crown.  Yet  even  in  his  last  hours,  oppressed  by 
mortal  sickness,  hourly  expecting  his  sentence,  he 
felt,  as  he  told  his  son,  that  God's  promises  were 
sure,  and  that  the  "  testimony  of  David"  would, 
in  his  case  also,  be  verified.  "  I  have  been  young, 
and  now  am  old,  and  yet  saw  I  never  the  righteous 
forsaken,  nor  his  seed  begging  their  bread"  (Ps. 
xxxvii.,  verse  25). 

More  fortunate  than  Baillie,  his  most  intimate 
friend.  Sir  Patrick  Home  of  Polwarth  (i 641-1724), 
afterwards  first  Earl  of  Marchmont,  succeeded  in 
escaping  arrest,  and  lived  to  take  part  in  the 
Revolution  and  to  hold  high  office  in  Scotland.  In 
the  autumn  of  1684,  the  pursuit  was  hot.  Search 
parties  repeatedly  visited  Polwarth  ;  the  servants 
were  frequently  examined.  But  though  Sir  Patrick 
lay  concealed  barely  a  mile  from  the  house,  his 
hiding-place  was  never  discovered.  He  had  taken 
refuge  in  the  family  burying-place,  "  a  vault  under- 
ground at  Polwarth  Church,  .  .  .  where  he  had 
only  for  light  an  open  slit  at  one  end,  through 
which  nobody  could  see  what  was  below."  The 
secret  was  only  known  to  three  persons — a  car- 
penter named  Jamie  White,  Lady  Home,  and 
her  daughter  Grizell,  afterwards  Lady  Grizell 
Baillie,  then  barely  twelve  years  old.  It  was  this 
child,  as  the  person  who  was  least  likely  to  be 
suspected  and  watched,  who  at  midnight  carried 
food  and  drink  to  her  father,  braving  the  terrors 
of  the  lonely  churchyard.  During  his  conceal- 
ment, Sir  Patrick's  "  great  comfort,  and  constant 


274       THE  SCOTTISH  COVENANTERS 

entertainment  (for  he  had  no  hght  to  read  by) 
was  repeating  Buchanan's  Psalms,  which  he  had 
by  heart  from  beginning  to  end,  and  retained  them 
to  his  dying  day."  Eventually  he  escaped  to 
London  and  thence  to  Holland.  Forty  years  later, 
his  memory  of  the  Psalms  was  still  fresh,  in  spite  of 
age  and  the  preoccupations  of  a  crowded  public  life. 
He  would  bid  his  daughter  open  Buchanan's  book — 
which  always  lay  on  the  table  at  his  side — where 
she  would,  name  any  Psalm,  and  follow  him  in 
the  print  as  he  repeated  the  words.  "  And  he 
missed  not  a  word  in  any  place  she  named  to  him, 
and  said,  they  had  been  the  great  comfort  of  his 
life,  by  night  and  day,  on  all  occasions." 

The  last  of  the  Cameronians  who  suffered  on  the 
scaffold  was  James  Renwick,  though  his  sentence 
was  due  rather  to  his  political  tenets  than  to  his 
religious  opinions. 

Among  the  crowd  who  had  witnessed  Cargill's 
execution  in  the  Grassmarket  of  Edinburgh,  was  a 
lad  of  nineteen,  the  son  of  a  Nithsdale  weaver. 
The  lad  was  James  Renwick.  So  stirred  was  he 
by  the  scene,  that  he  cast  in  his  lot  with  the 
persecuted  remnant  of  the  Cameronians.  Ordained 
to  the  ministr}^  after  six  months'  study  at  Groningen, 
he  returned  to  Scotland,  and  began  to  preach  in 
October  1683.  On  his  shoulders,  young  though 
he  was,  rested  the  burden  of  the  struggle.  The 
spirit  which  he  threw  into  his  work  is  revealed  by 
a  passage  from  one  of  his  letters  from  Holland. 
"  Courage  yet  !  "  he  writes,  "  for  all  that  is  come 
and  gone.  The  loss  of  men  is  not  the  loss  of  the 
cause.  What  is  the  matter  though  we  all  fall  ? 
The  cause  shall  not  fall."  Thus  inspired,  Renwick 
speedily  became  the  soul  of  the  movement  among 
the  Cameronian  Societies,  who  disowned  the  king, 
and  declared  war  against  him  as  the  subverter  of 
the  religion  and  liberty  of  the  nation. 

During  the  "  Killing  Times  "  vigorous  search  was 


JAMES  RENWICK  275 

made  for  Renwick.  But  he  evaded  capture,  and 
it  was  not  till  January  1688  that  he  was  taken. 
On  him  were  found  the  notes  of  his  last  two  ser- 
mons, one  of  which  was  on  Psalm  xlvi.,  verse  10, 
"  Be  still,  then,  and  know  that  I  am  God  :  I  will 
be  exalted  among  the  heathen,  and  I  will  be 
exalted  in  the  earth."  He  was  charged  with 
denying  the  authority  of  King  James  vii.,  teaching 
the  unlawfulness  of  paying  the  tax  called  "  cess," 
and  exhorting  the  people  to  carry  arms  at  field- 
meetings.  The  charges  were  admitted,  and  he  was 
sentenced  to  death.  On  February  17,  1688,  he 
was  executed  at  the  Grassmarket  in  Edinburgh. 
More  than  once  his  words  were  drowned  by  drums. 
But  he  sang  a  part  of  Psalm  ciii.,  the  psalm  which 
was  always  chanted  by  "  the  Saints  "  at  the 
celebration  of  the  Sacrament  ;  and,  as  he  was 
turned  over  the  ladder,  his  last  words  were,  "  Lord, 
into  thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit  ;  for  thou 
hast  redeemed  me,  O  Lord,  thou  God  of  truth  " 
(Ps.  xxxi.,  verse  6).  The  same  text,  in  whole  or 
in  part,  was  quoted  by  more  than  half  of  the 
great  army  of  "  witnesses  "  who  suffered  on  the 
scaffold,  between  Hugh  M'Kail  in  1666  and  James 
Renwick  in  1688.  Nearly  all  of  them,  like  John 
Nisbet,  died  "  protesting  against  and  disowning 
Popery  in  all  its  superstitions  and  bloody  bigotry, 
and  Prelacy  the  mother  of  Popery  "  ;  and  yet, 
in  the  moment  of  their  death,  they  committed 
their  souls  to  God  in  the  same  words  which  were 
consecrated  by  their  use  on  the  lips  of  hundreds 
of  Roman  Catholic  and  Anglican  martyrs. 

Nor  was  it  only  on  the  scaffold  that  men 
died.  There  were  many  murders  which  were  not 
even  judicial.  On  January  i,  1685,  for  example, 
Daniel  M*  Michael  was  led  out  into  the  fields  to 
be  shot,  and  died  singing  part  of  Psalm  xlii.  In 
the  following  February,  Alexander  M' Robin  was 
hanged  upon  an  oak  tree  near  the  Kirk  of  Irongray. 

19 


276       THE  SCOTTISH  COVENANTERS 

At  the  tree-foot,  a  friend  asked  him  if  he  had  any 
word  to  send  to  his  wife.  "  I  leave  her  and  the 
two  babes  upon  the  Lord,"  answered  M' Robin, 
"  and  to  His  promise  :  a  father  to  the  fatherless, 
and  a  husband  to  the  widow,  is  the  Lord  in  His 
holy  habitation  "  (Ps.  Ixviii.,  verse  5).  And  so  he 
died,  as  Wodrow  records,  "  in  much  composure 
and  cheerfulness."  In  the  parish  of  Ingliston  was 
a  cave,  which  had  been  a  place  of  safety  to  not 
a  few  of  the  Covenanters.  On  April  29,  1685, 
guided  by  a  traitor,  the  soldiers  were  brought  to 
the  mouth  of  the  cave,  where  they  seized  five  of 
the  wanderers  who  had  found  refuge  in  its  shelter. 
John  Gibson,  who  alone  was  permitted  to  pray 
before  he  was  shot,  sang  part  of  Psalm  xvii., 
telling  his  mother  and  sister  that  it  was  the  joy- 
fullest  day  of  his  life.  The  rest  were  shot  "  without 
being  allowed  to  pray  separately." 

Nor  were  the  women  spared.  In  January  1681, 
two  "  honest,  worthy  lasses,"  as  Peden  calls  them, 
Isabel  Alison  and  Marion  Harvie,  were  hanged 
at  Edinburgh.  On  the  scaffold  they  sang  to- 
gether, to  the  tune  of  "  Martyrs,"  Psalm  Ixxxiv. 
"  Marion,"  said  Bishop  Paterson,  "  you  would 
never  hear  a  curate  ;  now  you  shall  hear  one," 
and  he  called  upon  one  of  his  clergy  to  pray. 
"  Come,  Isabel,"  was  the  girl's  answer — she  was 
but  twenty  years  of  age — "  let  us  sing  the  23rd 
Psalm,"  and  thus  they  drowned  the  voice  of  the 
curate. 

No  execution  of  the  time  was  more  universally 
condemned  than  that  of  these  two  women.  A 
roughly-drawn  picture  of  the  scene,  with  the  title 
"  Women  hanged,"  is  prefixed  to  the  first  edition 
of  the  Hind  Let  Loose  (1687).  By  its  side  is  an- 
other engraving,  which  represents  "  The  Wigtown 
Martyrs,  drowned  at  stakes  at  sea." 

In  1684,  the  Cameronian  Societies  had  answered 
the  renewed  violence  of  the  Government  by  their 


THE  WIGTOWN  MARTYRS  277 

Apologetical  Declaration.  In  this  document,  posted 
on  the  doors  of  parish  churches  and  on  market 
crosses,  they  declared  war  on  the  Government 
and  its  supporters,  "  disowned  the  authority  of 
Charles  Stewart  and  all  authority  depending  upon 
his,"  and  warned  their  assailants  that  they  would 
meet  force  by  force.  In  reply,  the  authorities 
devised  an  oath  of  abjuration,  which  was  framed 
as  a  test,  and  imposed  on  all  who  were  suspected 
of  belonging  to  the  Societies  or  of  hostility  to  the 
Government.  In  April  1685,  a  commission,  sitting 
at  Wigtown,  condemned  Margaret  Maclachlan  or 
M'Lauchlison,  an  elderly  widow  of  sixty,  and 
Margaret  Wilson,  a  girl  of  eighteen,  who  refused 
to  abjure  the  Apologetical  Declaration.  They  were 
sentenced  to  be  "  tied  to  stakes  fixed  within  the 
flood-mark  in  the  Water  of  Blednoch,  near 
Wigtown,  where  the  sea  flows  at  high  water,  there 
to  be  drowned."  The  sentence  was  carried  out, 
probably  not  with  the  sanction  of  the  Government, 
on  May  11,  1685. 

Twice  a  day,  up  the  deep  channel  of  the  sluggish 
Blednoch,  fringed  by  steep  and  sloping  mud-banks, 
sweeps  the  yellow  tide  of  the  sea.  Stakes  were 
set  in  the  ooze  of  the  tideway,  to  which  the  two 
women  were  bound.  The  elder  woman,  Margaret 
Maclachlan,  was  set  lower  down  the  river,  that 
the  younger  sufferer  might  see  her  struggles,  and 
her  course  finished,  before  she  herself  was  reached 
by  the  rising  sea.  Pitying  her  youth,  the  execu- 
tioners tried  to  save  Margaret  Wilson.  As  the 
water  swirled  about  her  body,  she  was  drawn  to 
the  edge  of  the  bank,  and  offered  her  life,  if  she 
would  say,  "  God  save  the  king,"  and  take  the 
test.  She  was  ready  to  say,  "  May  God  save  the 
king,  if  He  will,"  for  she  desired,  she  said,  the 
salvation  of  all  men  :  but  she  would  not  forswear 
her  faith,  or  take  the  test.  So  she  was  once  more 
secured  to  the  stake,  and  left  to  her  fate.      With 


278       THE  SCOTTISH  COVENANTERS 

her  fresh  young  voice,  as  the  salt  waves  curled 
above  her  breast  and  all  but  touched  her  lips, 
she  sang  the  25th  Psalm  : 

"  My  sins  and  faults  of  youth 
Do  Thou,  O  Lord,  forget  ; 
After  Thy  mercies,  think  on  me. 
And  for  Thy  goodness  great  "  ; 

and  so  continued  singing  till  her  voice  was  choked 
in  the  rising  tide. 

The  pohtical  principle,  on  which  the  Cameronians 
founded  their  resistance  to  the  king,  was,  that  the 
throne  had  been  forfeited,  and  was  vacant.  It  was 
not  long  before  that  principle  became  a  corner- 
stone of  the  Constitution.  On  November  5,  1688, 
William  of  Orange  cast  anchor  at  Torbay,  pledged 
to  support  the  Protestant  faith.  He  landed  exactly 
a  century  after  the  Spanish  Armada,  and  on  the 
anniversary  of  the  Gunpowder  Plot.  The  first  act 
of  Henry  of  Richmond,  afterwards  Henry  vii., 
when  he  landed  at  Milford  Haven  in  1485,  was  to 
fall  on  his  knees,  and  repeat  verses  of  Psalm  xxxv., 
"  Plead  thou  my  cause."  So  now,  as  a  sign  of 
WilHam's  mission,  the  debarkation  of  the  troops  was 
treated  as  a  religious  solemnity.  No  sooner  were 
the  soldiers  on  shore,  than  divine  service  was  con- 
ducted by  William  Carstares  ;  and  before  they 
encamped,  the  troops,  standing  along  the  beach, 
sang  Psalm  cxviii.,  "  O  give  thanks  unto  the  Lord, 
for  he  is  gracious  ;  because  his  mercy  endureth 
for  ever." 

But  the  success  of  the  Revolution  was  not  assured 
so  long  as  Ireland  was  held  for  King  James.  "  Oh, 
secure  Ireland  !  "  cried  Alexander  Peden  in  1685, 
"  a  dreadful  day  is  coming  upon  thee  within  a  few 
years,  so  that  they  shall  ride  many  miles  and  not  see 
a  reeking  house  in  thee:  Oh,  hunger!  Hunger  in 
Derry  !  Many  a  black  and  pale  face  shall  be  in 
thee."  The  defence  of  Derry  became  one  of  the 
turning-points  in   the  struggle.     It  saved    Ireland 


DERRY  HELD  AGAINST  KING  JAMES    279 

for  King  William  ;  and  it  was  the  prelude  to  his 
victor}^  at  the  Boyne  (July  i,  1690). 

The  importance  of  the  city  as  a  military  and  naval 
stronghold  was  clearly  recognised.  In  December 
1688,  Antrim's  regiment,  described  by  a  contem- 
porary as  "  a  pack  of  ruffians/'  many  of  "  whose 
captains  were  well  known  to  the  citizens,  having 
lain  in  their  jails  for  thefts  and  robberies,"  was  sent 
to  garrison  Londonderry  for  King  James.  On  the 
7th  of  the  month,  the  soldiers  were  seen  crossing 
the  river  and  approaching  the  Ferry  Gate  of 
Londonderry,  Acting  on  the  impulse  of  the 
moment,  a  number  of  young  men  ran  to  the  main 
guard,  sword  in  hand,  seized  the  keys,  drew  up  the 
bridge,  and  locked  the  gate  in  the  face  of  the  soldiers. 
When  news  of  this  revolt,  as  it  was  called,  reached 
Dublin,  Lord  Mountjoy  was  sent  to  reduce  the 
citizens  to  submission.  Without  arms,  ammunition, 
or  provisions,  Londonderry  made  the  best  terms 
it  could.  Two  companies  of  Protestant  soldiers, 
commanded  by  Colonel  Lundy,  himself  a  Protestant, 
were  admitted  as  a  garrison  for  King  James.  So 
matters  rested  for  some  three  months.  But  on 
March  20,  1689,  William  and  Mary  were  proclaimed 
king  and  queen  at  Londonderry  with  great  joy 
and  solemnity.  The  cit}^  had  thrown  in  its  fortunes 
with  the  Revolution  and  the  Protestants  against 
James  and  the  Roman  Catholics. 

Vigorous  efforts  were  at  once  made  by  Lord 
Tyrconnel,  the  Lord-Lieutenant,  to  regain  possession 
of  the  city  for  his  master.  As  James's  army  ap- 
proached, the  Protestants  of  the  North  of  Ireland 
fled  to  Londonderry  for  refuge.  Within  the  walls, 
cowardice  and  treachery  were  at  work.  Lundy  and 
his  officers  escaped,  to  the  ships  in  Lough  Foyle, 
and  left  the  city  to  its  fate. 

Deserted  by  their  leaders,  the  garrison  chose  the 
Rev.  George  Walker  and  Major  Baker  to  be  their 
governors,  and  prepared  to  hold  the  city  against  the 


28o       THE  SCOTTISH  COVENANTERS 

forces  of  King  James.  Surrounded  by  a  numerous 
army,  with  no  leaders  experienced  in  war,  imper- 
fectly armed,  without  engineers  to  instruct  them 
in  their  defence,  without  trenching  tools,  "  without 
Fire  Works,  not  so  much  as  a  Hand  Granado  to 
annoy  the  Enemy,"  with  but  few  guns  well  mounted 
in  the  town,  with  30,000  mouths  to  feed,  and, 
as  was  estimated,  with  only  ten  days'  provision 
for  them,  the  position  seemed  desperate.  There 
was  truth  in  the  comparison  which  Walker  makes  in 
his  Diary,  when  he  hkens  the  lot  of  the  citizens  of 
Derry  to  that  of  "  the  Israelites  at  the  Red  Sea." 
But  the  first  care  of  the  defenders  was,  to  quote 
again  his  words,  "  to  recommend  ourselves  and  the 
Cause  we  undertook  to  the  Protection  and  Care  of 
the  Almighty  ;  for  we  might  then  truly  say,  wdth 
the  Church  in  the  Liturgy, '  There  is  none  other  that 
fighteth  for  us,  but  only  Thou,  O  God.'  " 

The  siege  lasted  from  April  17  to  July  31. 
Closely  pressed  by  the  besiegers,  harassed  by  their 
continuous  fire,  threatened  by  their  mines  which 
were  pushed  close  to  the  walls,  the  citizens  held 
their  ground  with  singular  courage  and  resolution. 
Women  played  their  part  in  the  defence  by  the  side 
of  the  men.  Not  only  did  they  bring  up  the  match 
and  ammunition,  and  serve  out  bread  and  drink  to 
the  soldiers  on  the  walls,  but  they  beat  back  an 
attack  of  the  enemy  with  the  stones  which  had  been 
torn  up  from  the  streets  to  deaden  the  effect  of  the 
bombs.  Treachery  and  mutiny  were  Walker's 
daily  dread.  His  honesty,  as  matters  grew  more 
and  more  desperate,  was  called  in  question.  De- 
serters every  day  passed  into  the  camp  of  the 
enemy,  carr3dng  intelligence  of  the  straits  to  which 
the  garrison  was  reduced.  Provisions  ran  short. 
Horses,  dogs,  cats,  rats,  and  mice  w^ere  eaten. 
Except  the  men,  women,  and  children,  hardly  a 
living  thing  was  to  be  found  within  the  walls.  They 
had  no  fuel  left  with  which  to  cook.     Their  food  was 


GOOD  HUSBANDS  OF  YOUR  VICTUALS     281 

tallow,  meal,  and  salted  hides,  herbs  and  weeds. 
Water  was  their  drink,  and  that  was  scarce,  and 
only  obtained  with  difficulty  and  danger.  A  wet 
season  added  to  the  misery  of  the  citizens,  who  in 
their  half-starved  condition  fell  easy  victims  to 
the  diseases  that  it  fostered.  As  though  to  mock 
their  hopes  with  disappointment,  a  fleet  of  thirty 
sail  was  discovered  in  the  Lough  on  June  14.  It 
was  the  force  sent  for  the  relief  of  the  garrison.  But 
across  the  channel  the  besiegers  had  thrown  a  boom. 
Major-General  Kirke  did  not  attempt  to  force  the 
passage,  but  sailed  away,  sending  a  messenger  to 
Walker  in  the  beleaguered  city,  promising  succour, 
and  bidding  the  citizens  "  Be  good  husbands  of 
your  Victuals." 

Yet  the  resolution  of  Walker,  whose  colleague 
was  dead,  and  of  the  mass  of  the  citizens,  remained 
firm.  When  the  enemy  delivered  an  assault,  the 
starving  soldier,  who  had  fallen  under  the  weight 
of  his  musket  as  he  went  to  the  walls,  stood  gallantly 
to  his  post,  though  his  face  was  blackened  with 
hunger,  till  the  attack  was  repelled.  "  I  am  sure," 
writes  Hunter  in  his  Diary,  "  it  was  the  Lord  that 
kept  the  city,  and  none  else,  for  there  were  many  of 
us  that  could  hardly  stand  on  our  feet  before  the 
enemy  attacked  the  walls,  who,  when  they  were 
assaulting  the  out-trenches,  ran  out  against  them 
most  nimbly  and  with  great  courage.  Indeed,  it  was 
never  the  poor  starved  men  that  were  in  Derry  that 
kept  it  out,  but  the  mighty  God  of  Jacob,  to  whom 
be  praise  for  ever  and  ever.  Amen." 

On  the  28th  of  July,  the  fighting  force  of  the 
garrison  had  dwindled  from  7361  men  to  4300, 
and  of  these  fully  a  quarter  were  unfit  for 
service  owing  to  sickness,  famine,  or  wounds.  Still 
Walker  and  his  officers  clung  to  their  post  with  the 
tenacity  of  despair.  "  The  Governor,  finding  in 
himself,"  says  Walker  in  his  Diary,  "  still  that 
confidence,  that  God  would  not  (after  so  long  and 


282       THE  SCOTTISH  COVENANTERS 

miraculous  a  Preservation)  suffer  them  to  be  a  Prey 
to  their  Enemies,  preaches  in  the  Cathedral,  and 
encourages  their  Constancy,  and  endeavours  to 
establish  them  in  it,  by  reminding  them  of  several 
Instances  of  Providence  given  them  since  they  first 
came  into  that  Place,  and  of  what  consideration  it 
was  to  the  Protestant  Religion  at  this  time  ;  and 
that  they  need  not  doubt,  but  that  God  would  at 
last  deliver  them  from  the  Difficulties  they  were 
under." 

The  sermon  is  still  in  existence.  Never  were 
words  spoken  to  people  in  sorer  need  of  consolation 
and  encouragement,  and  it  is  from  the  Psalms  that 
they  are  chiefly  drawn.  With  strange  power  must 
the  verses  have  come  home  to  the  crowd  of  starving 
men  and  women  who  listened  to  the  preaching  of 
their  governor.  "  Let  but  the  Lord  arise,"  says 
holy  David,  "  and  His  enemies  shall  be  scattered." 
(And  again),  "  God  is  our  refuge  and  strength,  a 
very  present  help  in  trouble.  Therefore  will  we  not 
fear  though  the  earth  be  moved,  and  though  the 
mountains  be  carried  into  the  midst  of  the  sea  ; 
though  the  waters  thereof  roar  and  be  troubled  " 
(Ps.  xlvi.,  verses  i,  2,  3).  .  .  .  "  Considering  the 
deliverance  wrought  for  the  besieged  city  of  Samaria, 
as  for  Jerusalem  by  the  destruction  of  Sennacherib's 
host,  holy  David  says,  to  comfort  himself  and  his 
people,  viz. '  The  Lord  of  hosts  is  with  us  ;  the  God 
of  Jacob  is  our  refuge.  Come,  behold  the  works  of 
the  Lord,  what  desolation  He  hath  made  upon  the 
earth.  He  maketh  wars  to  cease  unto  the  end  of 
the  earth  :  He  breaketh  the  bow,  and  knappeth  the 
spear  in  sunder,  and  burnetii  the  chariot  in  the  fire. 
Be  still,  and  know  that  I  am  God  :  I  will  be  exalted 
among  the  heathen,  I  will  be  exalted  in  the  earth. 
The  Lord  of  Hosts  is  with  us  ;  the  God  of  Jacob  is 
our  refuge'"  (Ps.  xlvi.,  verses  7-1 1).  Gideon, 
Deborah,  and  Barach  were  instruments  in  the  hand 
of  God.     "  So  that  we  see,"  continues  the  preacher, 


GOVERNOR  WALKER'S  SERMONS     283 

"  that  God  confounds  strength  with  weakness  ;  for 
when  men  presume  too  much  on  the  arm  of  flesh, 
they  frequently  deceive  themselves,  and  in  the  midst 
of  their  security  are  overthrown.  Therefore  let  a 
good  Christian  consider  that  his  strength  is  in  the 
Lord.  And  if  God  hear  his  side,  he  need  not  be 
afraid  though  danger  beset  him  round  about,  but  be 
comforted  and  made  valiant  by  the  words  of  the 
kingly  prophet,  '  The  Lord  is  my  light  and  my  salva- 
tion ;  whom  then  shall  I  fear  ?  The  Lord  is  the 
strength  of  my  life  ;  of  whom  then  shall  I  be  afraid  ? 
When  the  wicked,  even  mine  enemies  and  my  foes, 
came  upon  me  to  eat  up  my  flesh,  they  stumbled 
and  fell.  Though  a  host  should  encamp  against 
me,  my  heart  shall  not  fear  ;  though  war  shall 
arise  against  me,  in  this  will  I  be  confident  '  " 
(Ps.  xxvii.,  verses  i,  2,  3). 

"  It  was  always  well,"  he  says,  "  with  the  seed 
of  Jacob  when  they  clave  fast  to  the  Rock  of  their 
Salvation.  But  when  they  grew  regardless,  He 
gave  them  up  to  the  oppressing  nations,  who 
grieved  His  chosen  Heritage,  for  it  is  said 
(Ps.  xviii.,  verses  25-27),  '  With  the  merciful  Thou 
wilt  show  Thyself  merciful.  And  with  an  upright 
man.  Thou  shalt  show  Thyself  upright  ;  with  the 
pure  Thou  shalt  show  Thyself  pure  ;  with  the  fro- 
ward  Thou  shalt  show  Thyself  froward.  For  Thou 
wilt  save  the  afflicted  people,  but  wilt  bring  down 
high  looks.'" 

"  There  is  nothing,"  he  concludes,  "  too  hard 
for  the  Lord,  when  He  designs  to  bring  about  His 
purposes.  '  I  called  upon  the  Lord  in  my  distress 
(says  holy  David).  The  Lord  answered  me,  and 
set  me  in  a  large  place.  The  Lord  is  on  my  side. 
I  will  not  fear  what  man  can  do  unto  me.  The 
Lord  taketh  my  part  with  them  that  help  me, 
therefore  shall  I  see  my  desire  upon  them  that 
hate  me.  It  is  better  to  trust  in  the  Lord,  than 
to    put    any    confidence    in    princes.     All    nations 


284       THE  SCOTTISH  COVENANTERS 

compassed  me  round  about,  but  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord  will  I  destroy  them  '  (Ps.  cxviii.,  verses 
5-10).  .  .  .  Let  us  take  courage,  then,  and  faint 
not,  but  acquit  yourselves  like  men." 

Sunday,  July  28,  1689,  was  a  memorable  day. 
"  It  was,"  says  Ash,  "  a  day  to  be  remembered 
with  thanksgiving  by  the  besieged  of  Derry  as 
long  as  they  live,  for  on  this  day  we  were  delivered 
from  famine  and  slavery.  With  the  former  they 
were  threatened  if  they  staid  here,  and  the  latter 
if  they  went  away  or  surrendered  the  garrison." 

Ships  were  seen  in  the  Lough,  and  were  recognised 
as  the  vessels  which  Kirke  had  promised  to  send 
to  their  relief.  A  favourable  wind  blew  from  the 
north-east  ;  the  Protestant  wind,  as  the  Dutch 
sailors  called  it,  which  had  wafted  William  to  the 
English  coast  and  blew  in  the  teeth  of  James.  The 
flag  on  the  cathedral  tower  was  twice  struck,  and 
eight  guns  were  fired,  in  order  that  the  ships  might 
know  that  the  garrison  were  at  their  last  gasp, 
and  that  "  if  they  came  not  now,  they  might  stay 
away  for  ever."  The  fleet  answered  with  six  guns, 
which  the  besieged  understood  to  mean  that  an 
attempt  would  be  made  that  day. 

About  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  wind 
and  tide  serving,  three  ships  hoisted  sail,  and 
entered  the  river.  The  Dartmouth,  a  frigate 
commanded  by  Captain  Leake,  acted  as  convoy 
to  the  Mountjoy  of  Derry,  Captain  Micaiah 
Browning,  commander,  and  the  Phcenix  of  Coleraine, 
Captain  Andrew  Douglas,  master,  both  laden  with 
provisions.  From  each  side  of  the  river  the 
besiegers  opened  a  brisk  fire  upon  the  advancing 
vessels.  Off  Culmore  Point,  a  musket-shot  from 
the  fort,  the  Dartmouth  anchored,  and  cannonaded 
the  castle,  diverting  its  fire  from  the  merchant 
ships.  The  Mountjoy,  followed  b}"  the  Phoenix, 
sailed  past  the  fort,  and,  proceeding  up  the  river, 
reached  the  boom.     She  struck  it  with  such  force 


RELIEF  OF  DERRY  285 

as  to  break  it,  but  the  recoil  drove  her  aground, 
for  the  wind  had  dropped,  and  she  had  not  way 
enough  to  carry  her  past  the  obstruction.  The 
smoke  from  the  guns  was  so  thick  that  the  garrison, 
watching  anxiously  from  the  walls  of  Derry,  could 
not  see  what  had  happened.  But  the  triumphant 
shouts  of  the  enemy,  "  the  most  dreadful  to  the 
besieged  that  ever  we  heard,"  the  increased  firing, 
and  the  preparations  to  board  the  grounded  vessel, 
told  to  the  starving  citizens  the  misfortune  of  the 
Mountjoy.  "  Our  trouble  is  not  to  be  expressed 
at  this  dismal  prospect,"  says  Walker.  It 
"  struck,"  writes  Mackenzie,  another  of  the 
garrison,  "  such  a  sudden  terror  into  our  hearts, 
as  appeared  in  the  blackness  of  our  countenances." 
Succour  was  at  their  doors,  yet  could  not  enter. 

But  the  commander  of  the  Mountjoy,  himself  a 
native  of  Derry,  and  carrying  help  to  his  fellow- 
townsmen,  was  not  disheartened.  "  He  stood 
upon  the  deck  with  his  sword  drawn,  encouraging 
his  men  with  great  cheerfulness."  Loading  his 
guns  with  "  partridge  shot,"  he  fired  a  broadside 
which  scattered  his  assailants.  It  did  more.  The 
shock  loosened  his  vessel  ;  the  rising  tide  floated 
her,  and  carried  her  past  the  boom.  At  the  very 
moment  of  his  triumph,  he  was  shot  through  the 
head.  But  Derry  was  saved.  By  ten  o'clock, 
both  ships  were  at  the  quay,  "  to  the  inexpressible 
joy  and  transport  of  our  distressed  garrison,  for 
we  only  reckoned  upon  two  days'  life,  and  had 
only  nine  lean  horses  left,  and  among  us  all  one 
pint  of  meal  to  each  man."  The  siege  was  practic- 
ally over.  On  the  31st  of  July  1689  the  enemy 
decamped,  and  the  cause  of  the  Revolution  was  saved 
in  Ireland. 


CHAPTER    XI 
1688-1900 

Changed  character  of  the  romance  of  reUgion  :  the  Psalms  in  the 
hves  of  religious  leaders — Baxter,  Law,  John  Wesley,  Charles 
Wesley,  William  Wilberforce,  Keble,  Manning,  Newman,  Thomas 
Arnold,  Julius  Hare,  Neander,  Charles  Kingsley,  Stanley, 
Chalmers,  Irving  ;  the  Psalms  in  the  lives  of  men  of  science — 
Locke,  Humboldt,  Joseph  de  Maistre,  Maine  de  Biran,  Sir  W. 
Hamilton,  Sir  James  Simpson,  Myers  Romanes ;  the  Psalms  in 
literature — Addison,  Cowper,  Boswell,  Hazlitt  and  Northcote, 
Scott,  Byron,  Hogg,  Wordsworth,  Sir  Henry  Taylor,  Tennyson, 
Matthew  Arnold,  Robert  Browning,  Elizabeth  Barrett  Bro\vning, 
Thackeray,  Fitzgerald,  Ruskin,  Carlyle. 

THE  first  seventy  years  of  the  eighteenth 
century  lie  Hke  a  plain  between  two  ranges 
of  hills.  Behind  it  rise  the  picturesque  highlands, 
in  which  the  theology  of  the  Middle  Ages  had 
fought  every  inch  of  ground  with  Protestantism, 
and  where  the  voluptuous  sensibility  of  the  Cavalier 
had  crossed  swords  with  the  stern  morality  of  the 
Puritan.  Before  it  loom  the  volcanic  heights  of 
the  French  revolutionary  era,  destined  to  be  the 
scene  of  new  conflicts,  where  once  more,  without 
thought  of  compromise  or  acquiescence,  opposing 
principles  contended  for  absolute  victory.  Be- 
tween the  mountain  ranges  extends  the  plain 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  rich  and  fertile,  but 
deficient  in  many  of  the  virtues  which  flourish  best 
on  more  barren  soils  and  in  more  bracing  air. 

England  under  the  last  two  Stuarts  had  retained 
the  heat  of  a  life-and-death  struggle,  though  the 
fire  was  already  burning  low.     Men  acted,  thought, 


THE  AGE  OF  PROSE  287 

spoke,  and  wrote  with  something  of  the  romance 
and  passion  of  their  ancestors.  At  least  they 
preserved  the  grand  manner,  if  they  had  lost  the 
high-toned  sentiment  which  was  its  impulse.  But 
in  the  age  of  Anne,  and  still  more  under  the  House 
of  Hanover,  the  temperature  was  chilled.  In  the 
Jacobite  cause  alone  survived  whatever  romance 
the  history  of  the  period  in  Great  Britain  contains. 
Among  the  devoted  adherents  of  the  House  of 
Stuart  still  glowed  the  fervour  and  poetry  of  the 
past,  and  both  are  enhanced  by  the  effective 
contrast  of  the  prosaic  utilitarian  surroundings. 
Both  also  are  suffused  by  the  tender  atmosphere 
of  pathos  which  lingers  round  defeated  causes. 
During  the  struggle,  in  which  so  much  daring  and 
self-devotion  were  displayed,  the  Psalms  supplied 
suggestions  for  many  political  songs.  But  the 
uses  to  which  the  opponents  respectively  put  their 
models  seem  characteristic  alike  of  Hanoverian 
and  Jacobite.  Here,  for  example,  is  a  Hano- 
verian squib  in  the  shape  of  a  metrical  parody 
of  Psalm  i.  : — 

"  The  man  is  blest  that  hath  not  lent 
To  French  pistoles  his  ear  ; 
Nor  raised  himself  as  traitors  do, 
Nor  sat  in  trickster's  chair  ; 

But  in  the  laws  of  Old  England 

Doth  set  his  whole  delight  ; 
And  in  those  laws  doth  exercise 

Himself  both  day  and  night." 

It  is  in  a  higher  vein  that  William  Hamilton  of 
Bangour  expresses  the  melancholy  of  the  Jacobite 
exiles  by  an  imitation  of  Psalm  cxxxvii.,  beginning  ; 

"  On  Gallia's  shore  we  sat  and  wept 
When  Scotland  we  thought  on. 
Robbed  of  her  bravest  sons,  and  all 
Her  ancient  spirit  gone." 

In  England,  at  any  rate,  the  Jacobite  movement 
did  not  extend  beyond  defined  districts.     Outside 


288  1688-1900 

these  limits  feeling  was  overpowered  by  caution. 
The  spirit  of  the  age  prevailed.  Society  banished 
enthusiasm  from  politics,  philosophy,  literature, 
religion,  and  took  its  ease.  In  politics — loyalty 
gave  place  to  expediency,  divine  right  to  con- 
stitutional monarchy.  In  philosophy — reason  and 
experience  dethroned  faith  and  tradition  ;  the 
thought  of  Locke,  clear,  sensible,  and  practical, 
reigned  supreme.  In  literature — passion,  spon- 
taneity, imagination  were  succeeded  bj''  the  finish, 
taste,  restraint,  and  intellectual  fancy  of  an  impulse 
which  had  lost  the  fervour  of  youth. 

In  religion,  the  change  was  equally  conspicuous. 
Alarmed  at  the  results  of  Catholic  zeal  or  Puritan 
fervour,  society  invoked  the  aid  of  the  established 
religion  to  control  extravagance,  to  restrain 
vehemence,  and  strengthen  order.  Never  was  the 
Church,  in  a  sense,  more  popular.  Never  was 
Christianity  more  ably  defended  ;  but  it  was  on 
the  ground  of  human  reasonableness  alone.  Its 
most  powerful  champions  fought  with  the  weapons 
of  their  assailants,  and  rejected  the  aid  of  all  that 
was  miraculous,  mysterious,  supernatural.  Cold 
and  rational,  they  endeavoured  to  argue  men  into 
goodness,  appealed  to  a  system  of  rewards  and 
punishments,  ignored  the  power  of  the  heart 
or  the  imagination.  The  result  was  disastrous. 
Religion  grew  formal,  full  of  propriety,  drowsy, 
prosperous.  Its  authority  was  put  forward  with 
cautious  regard  to  the  probability  of  its  acceptance. 
Seeming  to  distrust  itself,  it  was  regarded  as 
something  which  could  be  ignored,  not  as  some- 
thing which  imperatively  demanded  to  be  either 
obeyed  or  condemned.  The  devotional  cast  of 
mind,  the  enthusiasm,  the  mystery,  the  prophetic 
vision,  the  martyr's  passion,  were  left  behind  in 
the  natural  sanctuaries  of  the  mountains.  Nothing 
remained  but  a  religion  of  the  plains — low-lying, 
level,  utilitarian,  prosaic. 


REVIVED  ROMANCE  OF  RELIGION     289 

During  the  last  half  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
the  dying  embers  of  religious  fervour  were  fanned 
into  flame  by  the  Methodists  and  the  Evangelicals. 
Meanwhile  new  forces  were  coming  into  play  which 
gave  fresh  impulse  and  direction  to  ever}'^  form  of 
national  life.  Industrial  development  was  advancing 
with  rapidity.  Science  shook  off  its  dilettantism, 
and  became  a  power.  As  the  nineteenth  century 
advanced,  the  mental  attitude  of  inquirers  grew 
to  be  scientific.  The  supremacy  of  theology  was 
challenged  ;  the  claim  of  authority  sifted  or  denied. 
Out  of  the  shock  of  the  collision  emerged  the  religious 
parties  in  the  Church  as  we  know  them  to-day. 
Bitterly  opposed  as  they  were,  and  are,  in  love  of 
the  Psalter  they  were  united.  Under  new  impulses, 
the  romance  of  religion  revived,  though  in  an 
altered  form.  It  has  not  disappeared,  nor  even 
diminished  ;  but  it  has  changed  in  character.  It 
has  passed  from  without  to  within,  from  action  to 
thought,  from  deeds  to  emotions.  It  has  become, 
for  that  reason,  less  adapted  for  pictorial  treat- 
ment. The  Psalms,  as  of  old,  still  nerve  men  and 
women  to  suffer,  to  dare,  to  endure.  But,  on  the 
stage  of  history,  the  opportunity  of  witnessing  for 
the  faith  grows  rarer  as  the  world  becomes  more 
tolerant  or  more  indifferent  to  diversity  of  opinion. 
Religious  tragedies  are  still  played  on  every  side  of 
us,  and  in  our  midst.  If  they  could  be  revealed, 
they  would  have  the  special  interest  of  familiar 
conditions  and  contemporary  circumstances.  They 
would  come  closer  to  us  than  scenes  of  martyrdom. 
But  modern  tragedies  of  religion  are,  for  the  most 
part,  withdrawn  from  observation,  enacted  in  the 
privacy  of  home  rather  than  on  the  public  stage. 
Their  scene  is  the  human  heart,  or  the  human  brain. 
The  rack,  the  dungeon,  the  scaffold,  are  all  there. 
But  the  torture  is  the  chill  agony  of  doubt,  the  iron 
grip  of  remorseless  logic,  the  keen  analysis  of  search- 
ing introspection,  the  desperate  effort  to  hold  or 


290  1 688-1 900 

regain  cherished  behefs,  to  shake  off  the  gradual 
deadening  of  senses  once  susceptible  to  holy  im- 
pressions, to  resist  the  creeping  numbness  of  nerves 
formerly  responsive  to  sacred  influences.  To  the 
vanquished,  come  the  solitude,  the  void,  the  dark- 
ness of  lost  creeds  ;  to  the  victors,  belong  the  peace 
and  triumph  of  a  faith  that  has  withstood  the  test. 
The  scene  is  less  dramatic,  less  picturesque.  But 
the  trial  is  not  less  fiery  than  the  stake.  Who  can 
say  that  the  drawn-out  agony  of  those  who  have 
succumbed  does  not  exceed  the  pains  of  those  who, 
upheld  by  triumphant  confidence  in  their  cause, 
have  endured  the  most  exquisite  tortures  of  the 
body  ?  Who,  on  the  other  hand,  will  assert  that 
the  peace  and  joy  of  those,  whose  faith  withstands 
the  trial,  may  not  equal  the  most  ecstatic  vision 
of  his  risen  Lord  that  ever  gladdened  the  straining 
eyes  of  the  Christian  martyr  at  the  moment  of  his 
supremest  anguish  ? 

It  is  well  that  the  choice  of  subjects  is  thus,  in 
one  sense,  narrowed,  at  the  moment  when  the 
multifarious  activities  of  modern  life  widen  the 
field  so  indefinitely  that  selection,  necessarily 
arbitrary,  must  now  appear  capricious.  History 
may  illustrate  something  of  the  debt  which,  during 
the  last  two  centuries,  men  and  women  have  owed 
to  the  Psalms.  The  mystery  of  existence  forces 
itself  upon  our  attention.  The  eternal  questions 
of  whence  ?  and  why  ?  and  whither  ?  have  never 
been  more  insistent,  rolling  in  upon  us  like  the 
monotonous  surges  of  the  inarticulate  sea.  With 
tense  nerves  and  strained  senses,  men  and  women 
ask,  what  is  life,  and  what  is  death  ?  No  sound  of 
answer  comes,  except  the  echo  of  their  own  voices 
reverberating  through  a  cavernous  void  ;  and 
happy  are  they  who,  turning  in  their  weariness  to 
the  Psalter,  find  that  its  words  wrap  them  round 
like  a  folding  sense  which  brings  them  peace.  Of 
all   this   vast   sum   of    human   experience,   history 


RICHARD  BAXTER  291 

takes  no  account.  For  every  recorded  incident, 
there  are  millions  of  cases,  unknown  beyond  the 
secret  chambers  of  the  heart,  in  which  the  Psalms 
have  restored  the  faith,  lifted  the  despair,  revived  the 
hopes,  steeled  the  courage,  bound  up  the  wounds  of 
the  struggling,  suffering  hosts  of  humanity. 

On  the  lives  of  leaders  in  the  various  religious 
movements  which  mark  the  period,  may  be  traced 
the  influence  of  the  Psalms. 

Here  are  the  words,  "  And  call  upon  his  Name, 
and  declare  his  works  among  the  people  "  (Ps.  cv., 
verse  i),  which  are  inscribed  upon  the  pulpit  at 
Kidderminster,  once  occupied  by  Richard  Baxter 
(1615-92),  one  of  the  first  and  greatest  of  Noncon- 
formist divines,  the  eloquent  preacher,  the  volu- 
minous theological  writer,  patient  alike  under  the 
lifelong  pains  of  disease  and  thirty  years  of  almost 
incessant  persecution.  A  man  whose  personal 
holiness  was  never  disputed  by  his  bitterest  op- 
ponents, and  a  model  parish  priest,  he  so  trans- 
formed Kidderminster,  that  "  on  the  Lord's  day 
there  was  no  disorder  to  be  seen  in  the  streets  ; 
but  you  might  hear  a  hundred  families  singing 
psalms,  and  repeating  sermons  as  you  passed 
through  them."  The  use  of  the  Psalms  by  his 
parishioners  at  Kidderminster  might  well  have 
been  the  fruit  of  Baxter's  special  influence  ;  some 
may  even  have  been  sung  in  his  own  metrical  version. 
A  Paraphrase  on  the  Psalms  of  David  (1692)  was 
among  the  products  of  his  gigantic  literary  labours, 
and  his  own  words  show  that  he  found  in  the  Psalms 
a  daily  support.  In  1662,  at  the  age  of  forty- 
seven,  he  had  married  Margaret  Charlton,  a  girl  of 
gentle  birth  and  "  strangely  vivid  wit,"  the  faithful, 
tender  companion  of  whom  he  paints  a  loving 
portrait  in  his  Breviate  of  her  Life.  "  It  was  not," 
he  writes,  "  the  least  comfort  that  I  had  in  the 
converse  of  my  late  dear  wife,  that  our  first  in  the 
morning  and  our  last  in  bed  at  night,  was  a  psalm 
20 


292  I688-I9OO 

of  promise,  till  the  hearing  of  others  interrupted  it." 
It  was  in  the  counsel  of  the  Psalms  themselves,  it  may 
be  added,  that  Baxter  found  a  triumphant  answer  to 
the  complaints  of  his  neighbours  :  "  Let  the  saints 
be  joyful  with  glory,  let  them  rejoice  in  their  beds  " 
(Ps.  cxlix.,  verse  5). 

Baxter's  Saint's  Everlasting  Rest  and  Call  to  the 
Unconverted  are  masterpieces  of  devotional  litera- 
ture, whose  widespread  popularity  still  endures. 
Scarcely  less  powerful,  though  far  less  popular,  has 
been  the  influence  of  the  Serious  Call  {i72g)  of 
William  Law  (1686-1761),  "a  nonjuror,  a  wit,  and 
a  saint,  who  seems  to  have  believed  all  that  he  pro- 
fessed, and  to  have  practised  all  that  he  enjoyned." 
As  literature,  the  book  is  read  for  its  masterly  style 
and  for  the  keen  satire  of  its  portraits.  As  a  call 
to  devotion,  it  was  the  first  book  w^hich  made 
Dr.  Johnson  think  "  in  earnest  of  religion."  Lord 
Lyttelton  could  not  lay  it  down  till  he  had  read  it 
through,  called  it  "  one  of  the  finest  books  that 
ever  was  written,"  and  only  wondered  that  it  "  had 
been  penned  by  a  crack-brained  enthusiast."  On 
the  two  Wesleys,  on  Whitefield,  on  Evangelicals  like 
Venn,  Newton,  and  Scott,  on  leaders  of  the  Oxford 
movement  like  Keble  or  Newman,  its  influence  was 
profound.  At  the  present  day,  when  the  church- 
manship  of  Law  is  again  in  the  ascendant,  the 
ascetic  tone  of  the  Serious  Call  finds  readers,  with 
whose  principles  it  is  more  in  harmony  than  with 
those  of  Methodist  or  Evangelical. 

At  the  time  when  Law  wrote,  the  bare  externals 
of  religion  were  punctiliously  observed.  But  the 
divorce  between  precept  and  practice  was  absolute. 
It  was  on  this  contrast  that  Law's  logical  intellect 
seized,  and  the  Serious  Call  invites  Christians  to 
practise  what  they  professed,  to  "  live  more  nearly 
as  they  prayed."  To  the  use  of  the  Psalms,  as  an 
aid  to  that  devotion  which  dedicates  a  life  to  God, 
one  of  Law's  most  eloquent  chapters  (chapter  xv.) 


LAW'S  SERIOUS  CALL  293 

is  devoted.  "  Do  but  so  live,"  he  says,  "  that  your 
heart  may  truly  rejoice  in  God,  that  it  may  feel 
itself  affected  with  the  praises  of  God,  and  then  you 
will  find  that  this  state  of  your  heart  will  neither 
want  a  voice  nor  ear  to  find  a  tune  for  a  psalm." 
He  bids  men  imagine  themselves  "  with  Moses 
when  he  was  led  through  the  Red  Sea."  "  Do  you 
think  that  you  should  then  have  wanted  a  voice  or 
an  ear  to  have  sung  with  Moses,  '  The  Lord  is  my 
strength  and  my  song,  and  He  is  become  my  salva- 
tion,' etc.  ?  "  The  chapter  closes  with  a  selection 
of  the  psalms  which  are  best  adapted  for  devotional 
use.  Psalm  cxlv.,  "  I  will  magnify  thee,  O  God, 
my  King,  and  I  will  praise  thy  Name  for  ever  and 
ever,"  is  his  choice  for  a  morning  hymn.  "  The 
34th,  96th,  103rd,  I  nth,  146th,  147th,"  are  such 
as  wonderfully  set  forth  "  the  glory  of  God,  and, 
therefore,  you  may  keep  to  any  one  of  them  at  any 
particular  hour  as  you  like ;  or  you  may  take  the  finest 
parts  of  any  psalms,  and  so,  adding  them  together, 
may  make  them  fitter  for  your  own  devotion." 

Here  are  the  words  of  Psalm  cxxx.,  "  Out  of  the 
deep  have  I  called  unto  thee,  O  Lord  :  Lord,  hear 
my  voice,"  etc.,  which  John  Wesley  (1703-91)  heard 
sung  on  the  afternoon  of  Wednesday,  May  24,  1738, 
as  an  anthem  at  St.  Paul's  Cathedral.  The  psalm 
was  one  of  the  influences  that  attuned  his  heart  to 
receive  that  assurance  of  his  salvation  by  faith, 
which  the  evening  of  the  same  day  brought  to  him 
in  the  room  at  Aldersgate  Street.  On  the  founda- 
tion of  that  sure  confidence,  his  intense  energy, 
organising  genius,  and  administrative  capacity 
built  up,  for  the  most  part  from  neglected  materials, 
the  mighty  movement  that  still  bears  both  his  name 
and  the  impress  of  his  structural  mind.  For  half  a 
century,  as  he  rode  up  and  down  the  country,  his 
voice  sounded  louder  and  louder,  till  it  penetrated 
every  corner  of  the  kingdom,  rousing  once  more  the 
sense  of  the  need  of  personal  rehgion,  and  stirring 


294  1 688-1 900 

anew  the  numbed  perception  of  unseen  spiritual 
realities.  On  March  2,  1791,  he  died  at  the  Chapel 
House  in  the  City  Road,  London.  It  was  with  the 
words  of  the  Psalms  that  he  met  the  approach  of 
death.  Gathering  his  remaining  strength  into  the 
twice-repeated  cry,  "  The  best  of  all  is,  God  is  with 
us  !  "  he  lay  for  some  time  exhausted.  One  of  the 
bystanders  wetted  his  parched  lips.  "  It  will  not 
do,"  he  said  ;  "  we  must  take  the  consequence  ; 
never  mind  the  poor  carcase."  Pausing  a  little,  he 
cried,  "  Thy  clouds  drop  fatness  !  "  (Ps.  Ixv.,  verse 
12)  ;  and  soon  after,  "  The  Lord  of  hosts  is  with  us, 
the  God  of  Jacob  is  our  refuge  "  (Ps.  xlvi.,  verse  7). 
Throughout  the  night  he  was  heard  attempting  to 
repeat  the  words.  The  next  morning  he  was  dead. 
With  a  psalm  also  died  Charles  Wesley  (1707-88). 
The  first  hymn-book  compiled  for  the  use  of  the 
Church  of  England  was  John  Wesley's  Collection 
of  Psalms  and  Hymns,  printed  at  Charlestown  in 
1736-37.  Wesley  regarded  hymns  as  a  powerful 
means  both  of  expressing  the  devotional  feelings  and 
of  establishing  the  faith  of  his  followers.  He  him- 
self wrote  or  translated  many  that  are  still  in  popular 
use.  But  the  great  hymn-writer  of  the  movement, 
and  perhaps  the  greatest  hymn-writer  the  world 
has  ever  known,  was  his  younger  brother.  Of 
Charles  Wesley's  six  thousand  five  hundred  hymns, 
some  are  unsurpassed  in  beauty,  and  rank  among  the 
finest  in  the  English  language.  Throughout  his 
life  they  were  the  form  in  which  he  found  the  truest 
expression  for  his  deepest  feelings.  On  his  death- 
bed, in  March  1788,  the  train  of  thought  suggested 
by  Psalm  Ixxiii.,  verse  25  ("  My  flesh  and  my  heart 
faileth  ;  but  God  is  the  strength  of  my  heart,  and 
my  portion  for  ever  "),  took  shape  in  verse.  It  was 
the  last  exercise  of  his  wonderful  gift.  Calling  his 
wife  to  his  side,  he  dictated  to  her  the  lines  : 

"  In  age  and  feebleness  extreme, 
What  shall  a  sinful  worm  redeem  ? 


WILLIAM  WILBERFORCE  295 

Jesus,  my  only  hope  Thou  art, 
Strength  of  my  faihng  flesh  and  heart  ; 
O,  could  I  catch  a  smile  from  Thee, 
And  drop  into  eternity  !  " 

As  Luther's  success  had  stirred  the  dormant 
energies  of  the  Roman  Catholics,  so  the  Methodists 
roused  the  Church  of  England  from  her  lethargy. 
A  new  spirit  of  life  was  breathed  into  the  Establish- 
ment by  men  like  Newton,  Scott,  Venn,  and  Simeon. 
Of  the  personal  and  practical  religion  of  the  Evan- 
gelicals, William  Wilberf or ce(  1 759-1 83 3), who  moved 
and  finally  carried  the  abolition  of  the  Slave  Trade 
(1807),  may  be  taken  as  a  representative.  The 
brilliant  young  man,  whose  gay  wit  charmed  the 
town,  who  played  faro  while  George  Selwyn  held 
the  bank,  gambled  with  Fox,  was  the  bosom  friend 
of  Pitt,  flirted  with  Mrs.  Crewe,  bandied  criticisms 
with  Madame  de  Stael,  or  sang  ballads  to  the  Prince 
of  Wales,  passed  in  1785  through  that  crisis  of  the 
mind  and  character,  which  men  of  his  school  of 
religious  thought  call  "  conversion."  The  change 
never  turned  his  natural  gaiety  into  moroseness. 
He  remained  the  same  charming  companion,  but 
his  purpose  in  life  was  fixed  :  he  would  devote  his 
time  and  talents  to  philanthropic  efforts,  and 
especially  to  the  abolition  of  the  Slave  Trade. 

Numerous  passages  in  his  Diary  show  how  largely 
this  hidden  life  was  fed  by  the  study  of  the  Psalms. 
Granville  Sharpe  (1735-18 13),  his  predecessor  and 
colleague  in  the  work  of  abolishing  the  Slave  Trade, 
sang,  night  and  morning,  "  a  portion  of  the  Hebrew 
Psalms  to  his  harp."  So  Wilberf orce  studied  his 
Psalter.  In  his  Diary  for  1803,  he  writes  :  "  I  am 
reading  the  Psalms  just  now,  comparing  the  two 
versions,  and  reading  Home's  Commentary.  What 
wonderful  compositions  !  What  a  decisive  proof  of 
the  Divine  origin  of  the  religion  to  which  they  belong  ! 
There  is  in  the  world  nothing  else  like  them."  In 
1 807  he  had  gained  two  personal  triumphs.     He  had 


296  I688-I900 

carried  his  Bill  for  the  Abolition  of  the  Slave  Trade, 
and  he  had  kept  his  seat  for  Yorkshire.  Neither 
event  elated  him.  It  is  in  the  language  and  spirit 
of  the  Psalms  that  his  reflections  on  his  political 
successes  are  expressed,  as  he  meditates  on  such 
texts  as,  "  Not  unto  us,  O  Lord,  not  unto  us,  but 
unto  thy  Name  give  the  praise  "  (Ps.  cxv.,  verse  i). 
In  1 819,  in  the  midst  of  the  bustle  of  London  life, 
and  the  disturbances  which  threatened  the  domestic 
peace  of  the  country,  his  own  mind  was  serene. 
"  Walked  from  Hyde  Park  Corner,  repeating  the 
119th  Psalm,  in  great  comfort,"  is  the  entry  in  his 
Diary.  A  year  later  came  the  king's  coronation 
and  Queen  Caroline's  claim  to  be  crowned.  For 
taking  the  unpojDular  side  against  the  queen, 
Wilberforce  was  violently  attacked,  especially  by 
Cobbett.  To  a  man  of  his  temperament,  the  pain 
was  bitter.  It  was  to  the  Psalms  that  he  turned. 
"  The  71st  Psalm,  which  I  learned  by  heart  lately," 
he  tells  his  wife,  "  has  been  a  real  comfort  to  me." 

On  the  Psalms  is  based  the  most  popular  of  all  the 
writings  of  John  Keble  (i 792-1 866),  the  "  true  and 
primary  author  "  of  the  Oxford  movement.  His 
own  metrical  Psalter  (1839)  is  little  used  and  little 
known.  But  though  the  Psalms  supply  none  of  the 
texts  by  which  the  hymns  are  suggested  and  pre- 
faced, it  is  in  a  Psalm  (Ps.  xxxix.,  verse  4)  that  Keble 
found  the  spirit  of  true  poetry  as  opposed  to  mere 
verse,  and  it  is  from  the  Psalter  that  he  drew  the 
inspiration  of  The  Christian  Year  (1827).  In  his 
"  Dedication  "  he  avows  his  model  : 

"  O  happiest  who  before  Thine  altar  wait, 

With  pure  hands  ever  holding  up  on  high 
The  guiding  Star  of  all  who  seek  Thy  gate, 
The  undying  lamp  of  heavenly  Poesy. 

Too  weak,  too  wavering,  for  such  holy  task 
Is  my  frail  arm,  O  Lord  ;    but  I  would  fain 

Track  to  its  source  the  brightness,  I  would  bask 
In  the  clear  ray  that  makes  Thy  pathway  plain. 


MANNING  AND  NEWMAN  297 

I  dare  not  hope  with  David's  harp  to  chase 
The  evil  spirit  from  the  troubled  breast  ; 

Enough  for  me  if  I  can  find  such  grace 
To  listen  to  the  strain,  and  be  at  rest." 

A  text  from  the  Psalms  haunted  the  memory  of 
Henry  Manning  as  an  undergraduate  at  Oxford, 
when  his  rehgious  opinions  were  yet  unformed,  and 
his  ambitions  still  centred  on  political  life.  As 
cardinal  and  archbishop,  the  same  words  bore  to 
him  their  daily  message.  "  The  Psalms  and  the 
Lessons,"  he  says  in  an  autobiographical  note  on  the 
years  1829-31,  "  were  always  a  delight  to  me.  The 
verse  '  Why  art  thou  cast  down,  O  my  soul  ?  '  "  etc. 
(Ps.  xlii.,  verse  5),  "  always  seemed  a  voice  to  me. 
Every  day  in  the  daily  Mass  it  comes  back  to  me." 

It  was  a  verse  of  a  Psalm  (Ps.  civ.,  verse  23, 
"  Man  goeth  forth  to  his  work,  and  to  his  labour  : 
until  the  evening  ")  that  John  Henry  Newman 
chose  for  the  text  of  his  first  sermon.  From  the 
same  text  he  is  said  to  have  preached  for  the  last 
time  in  an  Anglican  pulpit.  "  How  vividly,"  writes 
Principal  Shairp,  "  comes  back  the  remembrance  of 
the  aching  blank,  the  awful  pause  which  fell  on 
Oxford,  when  that  voice  had  ceased,  and  we  knew 
that  we  should  hear  it  no  more.  It  was  as  when,  to 
one  kneeling  by  night,  in  the  silence  of  some  vast 
cathedral,  the  great  bell  tolling  solemnly  has  suddenly 
gone  still.  .  .  .  Since  then  many  voices  of  powerful 
teachers  may  have  been  heard,  but  none  that  ever 
penetrated  the  soul  hke  his."  From  the  Psalms  some 
striking  passages  in  Newman's  Dream  of  Gerontius 
are  echoes.  Gerontius  dies,  murmuring  the  familiar 
words  of  Ps.  xxxi.,  verse  6  : 

"  Novissima  hora  est :    and  I  fain  would  sleep. 
The  pain  has  wearied  me.   .   .   .  Into  Thy  hands, 
O  Lord,  into  Thy  hands.   .   .   ." 

His  "  struggling  soul  quitted  its  mortal  case,"  and 
is  borne  by  the  angel  into  the  presence  of  the  just 
and  holy  Judge.     As  the  soul  and  its  guardian  mount 


298  I688-I900 

upwards,  the  angelic  choirs  hymn  their  Maker's 
praise  in  Hnes,  whose  opening  stanza  recalls  Psalms 
cxlviii.  and  cl.  : 

"  Praise  to  the  Holiest  in  the  height, 

And  in  the  depth  be  praise  ; 

In  all  His  words  most  wonderful  ; 

Most  sure  in  all  His  ways  !  " 

The  great  Angel  of  the  Agony  pleads  with  Him 
whom  he  had  strengthened  in  the  garden,  and 
the  soul  of  Gerontius  lies  prone  at  the  "  dear  feet 
of  Emmanuel,"   .   .   .  happy, 

"  For  it  is  safe, 
Consumed,  yet  quickened,  by  the  glance  of  God." 

Then,  as  the  Angel  commits  his  charge  to  the 
temporary  keeping  of  the  Angels  of  Purgatory,  the 
Souls  within  the  golden  prison  break  into  a  solemn 
chant,  which  is  a  paraphrase  of  part  of  Psalm  xc.  : 

"  I.  Lord,  Thou  hast  been  our  refuge  in  every  generation  ; 

2.  Before  the  hills  were  born,  and  the  world  was,  from  age  to  age 

Thou  art  God. 

3.  Bring  us  not,  Lord,  very  low  ;  for  Thou  hast  said.  Come  back 

again,  ye  sons  of  Adam. 

4.  A  thousand  years  before  Thine  eyes  are  but  as  yesterday,  and 

as  a  watch  of  the  night  which  is  come  and  gone,"  etc.  etc. 

Here  are  the  words — "  O  give  me  the  comfort  of 
thy  help  again  ;  and  stablish  me  with  thy  free 
Spirit  "  (Ps,  li.,  verse  12) — which  the  great  head- 
master of  Rugby,  Thomas  Arnold,  repeated,  as,  in 
June  1842,  he  lay  on  his  deathbed  in  the  torture  of 
angina  pectoris.  Here  is  the  text — Psalm  xvii., 
verse  16 — in  which  Julius  Hare  specially  delighted. 
"  When,"  wrote  Whewell,  his  old  college  friend  at 
Trinity,  Cambridge,  "  the  Psalm  was  read  to  him 
before  his  spirit  departed,  he  thanked  those  who  had 
thus  chosen  the  words  of  Scripture  which  he  so 
especially  delighted  in  ;  with  these  sounds  of  glory 
singing  in  his  ears,  '  I  will  behold  Thy  presence  in 
righteousness  ;    and  when  I  awake  up  after  Thy 


STANLEY  AND  KINGSLEY  299 

likeness,  I  shall  be  satisfied  with  it,'  our  dear  friend 
fell  into  that  sleep  from  which  he  was  to  awake  in 
the  likeness  of  Christ."  To  Neander,  "  the  Father 
of  Church  History,"  Hare  and  the  Cambridge 
Liberals  of  his  circle  looked  for  the  reconciliation  of 
revelation  with  intellect,  and  here  is  the  Psalm — 
"  The  Lord  is  my  shepherd  ;  I  shall  not  want  " 
(Ps.  xxiii.,  verse  i) — which  was  sung  by  the  German 
students,  as  the  glare  of  their  torches  lit  up  the 
Markgrafen  strasse  in  Berlin,  to  celebrate  the  last  ^ 
birthday  of  the  great  German  theologian  (January  6, 
1850).  Here,  again,  is  the  favourite  text  of  Dean 
Stanley,  a  choice  characteristic  alike  of  the  man  and 
of  his  work  :  "  I  see  that  all  things  come  to  an  end  ; 
but  thy  commandment  is  exceeding  broad  "  (Ps. 
cxix.,  verse  96).  Here,  lastly,  is  the  favourite 
psalm  of  Charles  Kingsley — Psalm  Ixxvi.  "  How 
strange,"  he  writes,  when  voyaging  up  the  Rhine  in 
August  1 85 1,  and  looking  on  the  hills  crowned  with 
the  ruined  strongholds  of  freebooters,  "  that  my 
favourite  psalm  about  the  hills  of  the  robbers  (hills 
of  prey)  should  have  come  in  course  the  very  day  I 
went  up  the  Rhine."  Yet  there  was  another  psalm 
which  disputed  the  first  place  in  his  affections, 
associated,  as  it  was,  with  those  scenes  of  his  boy- 
hood at  Clovelly  that  inspired  "  The  Three  Fishers  " 
and  Westward  Ho  !  There,  a  true  child  of  the  sea, 
he  had  witnessed  its  cruelty  and  strength  ;  listened 
to  the  glowing  tales  of  ancient  mariners  which 
helped  him  to  fancy  that  each  trading  coaster  was  a 
galleon,  superbly  plunging  westward  for  Cathay  ; 
or  joined  "  the  men  who  worked  "  and  "  the  women 
who  wept  "  in  singing  out  of  the  old  Prayer-book 
version.  Psalm  cxxi.,  when  the  Clovelly  herring 
fleet  put  forth  into  the  deep  waters. 

In  the  religious  history  of  Scotland  no  event 
since  the  Reformation  created  so  profound  an  impres- 
sion as  the  secession  of  the  Free  Church  ministers, 

^  Neander  died  July  14,  1850. 


300  1688-1900 

May  18,  1843.  Here  too  the  Psalms  were  at  work. 
Of  that  movement,  Thomas  Chalmers  (i  780-1 847) 
was  the  leading  spirit.  In  early  life  he  had  hovered 
on  the  verge  of  atheism .  But  in  1 8 1  o  he  had  thrown 
off  the  spell,  and  his  original,  independent  mind 
passed  from  misery  into  what  he  himself  described 
as  "  Elysium."  Henceforward,  though,  to  quote 
his  words,  "  he  could  not  speak  of  the  raptures  of 
Christian  enjoyment  :  he  thought  he  could  enter  into 
the  feeling  of  the  Psalmist — '  My  soul  breaketh 
out  for  the  very  fervent  desire  that  it  hath  alway 
unto  thy  judgements  '  "  (Ps.  cxix.,  verse  20).  The 
depth  of  his  conviction,  the  intensity  of  his  en- 
thusiasm, the  fire  of  his  natural  eloquence,  triumphed 
over  the  rugged  uncouthness  of  his  manner.  No 
preacher  of  his  day  produced  so  strong  and  irre- 
sistible an  effect. 

To  secure  spiritual  independence  from  civil 
control  in  matters  which  to  him  and  his  followers 
seemed  vital,  he  and  four  hundred  and  seventy 
ministers  resigned  their  livings,  and  joined  the  Free 
Church.  With  that  memorable  "  Disruption,"  the 
Psalms  were  twice  associated.  It  was  from  the 
words,  "  Unto  the  godly  there  ariseth  up  light  in 
the  darkness"  (Ps.  cxii,,  verse  4),  that  Chalmers 
preached  a  sermon  in  Edinburgh  (November  17,1 842), 
which  put  fresh  vigour  into  those  who  dreaded  the 
unknown  future.  It  was  from  the  Psalms,  again, 
that  the  seceding  ministers,  on  the  day  of  the  formal 
separation,  drew  courage  and  hope.  On  May  18, 
1843,  Chalmers  presided  as  Moderator  over  the 
meeting  in  Tanfield  Hall.  A  heavy  thundercloud 
darkened  the  building.  But  as  Chalmers  gave  out 
the  Psalm  (xliii.)  to  be  sung,  beginning  at  the  3rd 
verse,  "  O  send  out  thy  light  and  thy  truth,  that 
they  may  lead  me,"  the  cloud  parted  ;  the  sun 
poured  forth  ;  the  sombre  shade  became  dazzling 
light. 

During  two  years  of  Chalmers'  ministry  in  Glasgow 


EDWARD  IRVING  301 

(1819-22),  he  had  for  his  curate  Edward  Irving, 
one  of  the  strangest  and  most  pathetic  figures  in 
the  ecclesiastical  history  of  the  last  century — the 
lover  of  Jane  Welsh,  the  friend  of  Thomas  Carlyle, 
and  the  founder  of  a  Church. 

In  1822,  Irving  began  to  preach  at  a  little  chapel 
in  Hatton  Garden.  Like  Byron,  he  awoke  to  find 
himself  famous.  The  most  brilliant  members  of 
London  society  crowded  to  hear  him  ;  the  mystic 
eloquence  and  prophetic  outpourings  of  this  im- 
passioned Cameronian  were  a  new  sensation  ;  his 
splendid  figure,  sonorous  voice,  and  noble  features 
heightened  the  magnetism  that  he  exercised  ; 
fashion  fell  at  his  feet.  Flattery  intoxicated  him. 
He  could  not  endure  neglect,  and  singularity  suc- 
ceeded to  singularity.  A  wave  of  religious  en- 
thusiasm had  swept  over  the  country,  its  tide 
setting  strongly  in  one  particular  direction.  In  the 
horrors  of  the  French  Revolution,  in  the  rise  and 
fall  of  Napoleon,  men  saw  the  fulfilment  of  Divine 
prophecies.  With  senses  alert  and  strained,  they 
watched  for  signs  of  the  impending  end  of  the  world. 
Poets  and  painters  sought  their  inspiration  in  Apoca- 
lyptic visions.  The  current  swept  Irving  from  his 
feet.  Hour  after  hour,  he  expounded  to  listening 
crowds  his  theories  of  the  Second  Advent,  his 
prophecies  of  "  the  Coming  of  the  Messiah  in  Glory 
and  Majesty."  In  1831,  the  "  unknown  tongues  " 
were  for  the  first  time  heard  in  his  church  at  Regent 
Square,  and  henceforward  they  became  frequent, 
if  not  habitual,  occurrences. 

In  April  1832,  the  trustees  of  the  Regent  Square 
church  removed  him  from  the  pulpit,  though  the 
bulk  of  his  congregation  followed  him  to  Gray's  Inn 
Road.  He  was  still  a  minister  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland  ;  but  in  March  1833,  he  was  deposed  from 
his  ministry  by  the  Presbytery  of  Annan.  The 
tribunal  before  which  he  appeared,  consisted  of 
homely  old  men — half  ministers,  half  sheep-farmers 


302  1688-1900 

— summoned  from  their  rural  manses  to  determine 
delicate  questions  of  theological  orthodoxy.  Hours 
passed  in  the  speeches  of  the  accusers,  and  in  the 
defence  of  the  most  eloquent  and  brilliant  preacher 
of  the  day.  The  trial  began  at  noon.  It  was  dark 
when  Irving  was  pronounced  by  the  Presbyters  to 
be  guilty  of  heresy.  Before  the  moderator  delivered 
sentence  of  deposition,  in  a  scene  of  strange  excite- 
ment, Irving  left  the  dimly  lighted  church,  in  which 
he  had  been  baptized  and  ordained,  crying  to  the 
crowd  that  obstructed  his  passage,  "  Stand  forth  1 
Stand  forth  1  What  !  will  ye  not  obey  the  voice  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  ?  As  many  as  will  obey  the  voice 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  let  them  depart."  He  was  at 
least  spared  the  pain  of  hearing  himself  cast  out  by 
the  Church  which  disowned  his  service.  "  I  sang 
in  my  heart,"  he  says,  "  '  Blessed  be  the  Lord,  who 
hath  not  given  us  as  a  prey  to  their  teeth  '  "  (Ps. 
cxxiv.,  verse  6). 

Irving  returned  to  London  to  find  himself  for- 
bidden to  administer  the  Sacraments,  for  the  act  of 
deposition  was  a  judicial  act,  depriving  him  of  his 
authority  as  a  minister.  Though  he  was  re-ordained 
by  the  apostles  of  his  own  Church,  he  never  recovered 
from  the  blow.  He  accepted  it  with  a  humility 
which  was  the  more  touching  from  his  confidence  in 
his  extraordinary  powers .  But  his  heart  was  broken . 
Slowly  his  life  ebbed  from  him.  His  faith  in  his 
mission  was  unshaken  ;  he  believed  in  it  with  all 
the  fervour  and  strength  of  his  soul,  and  toiled  still 
to  gain  for  it  the  ear  of  the  world  ;  but  in  vain. 
In  September  1834,  he  left  London  a  dying  man. 
Riding  through  Shropshire  and  Wales,  and  visiting 
his  scattered  congregations  as  he  went,  he  reached 
Liverpool.  In  his  touching  letters  to  his  wife  are 
messages  to  his  little  daughter,  Maggie,  sent  in  the 
simply-told  stories  that  he  gleaned  on  his  way. 
When  other  comforts  had  failed,  and  fame  had  fled, 
he  clung  still  to  his  Bible,  and  made  the  Psalms  his 


MEN  OF  SCIENCE  303 

constant  companions.  "  How  in  the  night  seasons," 
he  writes  on  October  12,  "  the  Psalms  have  been 
my  consolations  against  the  faintings  of  flesh  and 
spirit." 

At  Liverpool  he  took  ship  and  sailed  for  Glasgow. 
The  end  was  near.  For  a  few  weeks  he  was  able 
to  preach,  though,  at  forty- two,  his  gaunt  gigantic 
frame  bore  all  the  marks  of  age  and  weakness. 
His  face  was  wasted,  his  hair  white,  his  voice 
broken,  his  eyes  restless  and  unquiet.  As  Nov- 
ember drew  to  its  close,  his  feebleness  increased, 
till  it  was  evident  that  his  life  was  rapidly  passing 
away.  His  mind  began  to  wander.  Those  who 
watched  at  his  bedside  could  not  understand  the 
broken  utterances  spoken  in  an  unknown  tongue 
by  his  faltering  voice.  But  at  last  it  was  found 
that  he  was  repeating  to  himself  in  Hebrew 
Psalm  xxiii.,  "  The  Lord  is  my  shepherd."  It 
was  with  something  like  its  old  power  that  the 
dying  voice  swelled  as  it  uttered  the  glorious 
conviction,  "  Though  I  walk  through  the  valley 
of  the  shadow  of  death,  I  will  fear  no  evil."  The 
last  articulate  words  that  fell  from  his  lips  were, 
"  If  I  die,  I  die  unto  the  Lord.  Amen."  And 
with  these  he  passed  away  at  midnight  on  De- 
cember 7,  1834. 

Nor  is  the  love  of  the  Psalter  confined  to  those 
who,  in  their  different  ways,  and  often  in  bitter 
opposition,  have  defended  the  truths  of  Christianity. 
It  comprehends,  also,  many  of  those  who  have 
stood  in  the  forefront  of  the  scientific  attack.  A 
vast  change  has  passed  over  the  spirit  of  the 
conflict.  The  combatants  no  longer  fight  for 
victory  ;  both  sides  respect  the  convictions  of  the 
other  ;  both  contend  for  truth,  and  learn  to 
welcome  it,  from  whatever  source  derived.  Ex- 
perience has  proved,  not  onl}^  that  scientific  en- 
thusiasm can  raise  men  to  heights  of  the  purest 
morality,   of  the   most   absolute   disinterestedness 


304  I 68 8- I 900 

and  most  austere  self-denial,  but  also  that  the 
scientific  attitude  is  not  incompatible  with  religious 
aspirations  or  religious  convictions.  To  some  men, 
faith  is  far  harder  of  attainment  than  to  others  ; 
to  some,  in  their  profound  sincerity  of  mind,  it 
may  even  be  almost  impossible.  Yet,  probably, 
few  champions  of  science,  driven  to  take  their 
stand  on  a  point  of  Nothing  in  the  agnostic  abyss 
of  Nothing,  have  not  longed,  at  some  moments 
of  their  lives,  that  their  feet  were  firmly  planted 
on  the  Rock. 

John  Locke  lived  the  last  fourteen  years  of  his 
life  at  Oates,  in  Essex,  an  inmate  of  the  house  of 
Sir  Francis  Masham.  In  his  seventy-third  year, 
his  strength  failed  him  fast,  and  he  knew  that 
his  end  was  near.  On  October  28,  1704,  Lady 
Masham  was  reading  the  psalms  for  the  day, 
"  low,  while  he  was  dressing."  He  asked  her  to 
read  them  aloud,  and  it  was  while  he  was  listening 
to  the  words,  that  the  stroke  of  death  fell  upon 
him.  In  the  Psalms,  Alexander  von  Humboldt 
( 1 769-1 859)  recognized  an  epitome  of  scientific 
progress,  a  summary  of  the  laws  which  govern 
the  universe.  "  A  single  psalm,  the  104th,"  he 
writes,  "  may  be  said  to  present  a  picture  of  the 
entire  Cosmos.  .  .  .  We  are  astonished  to  see, 
within  the  compass  of  a  poem  of  such  small 
dimension,  the  universe,  the  heavens  and  the 
earth,  thus  drawn  with  a  few  grand  strokes." 

Similar  testimony  to  the  power  of  the  Psalms 
is  borne  by  Joseph  de  Maistre  (i  753-1 821),  whose 
work  on  the  Papacy  a  distinguished  contemporary, 
the  Vicomte  de  Bonald,  pronounced  to  be  "  sub- 
lime," and  by  Maine  de  IBiran  (i  766-1 824),  whom 
Cousin  called  one  of  the  greatest  of  French  meta- 
physicians. 

Joseph  de  Maistre  witnessed  with  horror  the 
progress  of  the  French  Revolution.  To  a  man  of 
his  religious  and  somewhat  mystical  temperament, 


JOSEPH  DE  MAISTRE  305 

its  doctrines,  even  in  moderation,  made  no  appeal. 
Holding,  as  he  did,  that  the  so-called  Renaissance 
ushered  in  the  death,  and  not  the  new  birth,  of 
mankind,  he  regarded  the  blood-stained  excesses 
of  the  revolutionary  movement  as  the  necessary 
outcome  of  the  deification  of  human  reason.  The 
unrestrained  exercise  of  critical  thought  in  regions 
which,  in  his  opinion,  lay  beyond  its  scope,  had 
destroyed  the  foundations  not  only  of  religion  but 
of  society.  It  was  from  this  point  of  view  that 
he  vigorously  assailed  the  philosophy  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  desired  to  restore  the 
Papacy  to  the  position  which  it  claimed  in  the 
Middle  Ages — to  establish  a  theocracy  in  fact  as 
well  as  theory.  The  reaction  produced  in  Europe 
by  the  events  which  accompanied  and  followed  the 
downfall  of  the  French  Monarchy  gave  his  writings 
an  immense  popularity.  In  his  unfinished  and 
posthumous  work,  Les  Soirees  de  Saint-Petersbourg 
(1821),  partly  written  while  he  lived  in  the  Russian 
capital  as  Sardinian  ambassador,  he  covers  a  vast 
range  of  subjects.  The  three  friends  who  take 
part  in  the  conversations  discuss  man  in  all  his 
relations  with  God,  the  reconciliation  of  free  will 
and  divine  omnipotence,  the  explanation  of  the 
riddle  of  good  and  evil.  The  seventh  conversation 
deals  mainly  with  prayer,  and  with  the  Psalms  as 
the  "  book  of  books"  on  the  subject.  De  Maistre 
points  out  that,  however  relative  or  accidental 
may  be  the  motif  of  any  particular  Psalm,  the 
writer  always  rises  above  its  immediate  limitations 
to  its  more  general  application,  and  dwells  now 
on  the  divine  omnipresence,  now  on  Nature  as  the 
operation  of  His  hands  or  the  expression  of  His 
will.  Hence  arises  one  great  characteristic  of  the 
Psalms — their  universality.  Appealing  to  the 
whole  human  race,  and  not  to  the  Hebrew  nation 
only,  the  Psalmist  condenses  the  spirit  of  the 
entire   work    in    the    last   verse    of    the    volume 


3o6  I 688-1 900 

(Ps.  cl.  verse  6,  "  Let  every  thing  that  hath  breath 
praise  the  Lord  ").  Nor  is  it  only  to  the  present 
generation  that  the  book  is  addressed.  It  is 
written  also  "  for  those  that  come  after,  and  the 
people  which  shall  be  born  shall  praise  the  Lord  " 
(Ps,  cii.,  verse  18).  For  thirty  centuries  successive 
generations  have  responded  to  the  appeal.  "The 
Jewish  synagogue,"  concludes  de  Maistre,  "  pre- 
served the  Psalms  ;  the  Church  adopted  them  as 
her  own  ;  the  poetry  of  every  Christian  nation 
has  seized  them  as  its  possession.  The  sun  never 
sets  on  the  temples  whose  vaults  echo  \vith  the 
chant  of  these  sacred  h5^mns  ;  they  are  sung  in 
Rome,  in  Geneva,  in  Madrid,  in  London,  in  Quebec, 
in  Quito,  in  Moscow,  in  Botany  Bay  ;  they  are 
whispered  in  Japan." 

Unlike  the  Comte  de  Maistre,  Maine  de  Biran 
had  felt  the  glamour  of  the  freedom  from  traditions 
which  the  eighteenth  century  proclaimed.  Like 
him,  he  had  lived  through  all  the  storms  of  the 
French  Revolution,  the  Empire,  and  the  Restora- 
tion. A  soldier,  a  politician,  an  administrator, 
he  had  played  his  part  in  political  hfe.  Yet  it 
was  as  a  solitary  thinker,  a  keen  observer  of 
himself,  a  deep  student  of  the  facts  of  his  inner 
consciousness,  that  his  chief  work  was  done.  In 
his  Journal  he  lays  bare  the  mental  stages  by 
which  he  passed  from  the  guidance  of  Condillac 
to  that  of  Fenelon,  from  the  self-interest  of  the 
one  to  the  self-sacrifice  of  the  other.  The  rapid 
changes  in  all  around  him  forced  upon  his  mind  the 
need  of  some  fixed,  immutable  point  of  support. 
He  could  not  hold,  with  his  first  master,  that  man 
receives,  through  the  channels  of  the  senses  alone, 
all  the  elements  of  his  moral  and  intellectual 
nature.  Such  a  theory  brought  him  nothing  per- 
manent, and  no  repose.  For  a  time  he  wavered 
between  the  creed  of  the  Stoic  and  that  of  the 
Christian  ;    but  gradually  Marcus  Aurelius  yielded 


MAINE  DE  BIRAN  307 

to  the  teaching  of  the  Bible,  the  Pensees  of  Pascal, 
the  Imitation  of  Christ,  the  CEuvres  Spirituelles  of 
Fenelon.  Biran  became  a  believer  in  Christianity. 
In  a  philosophical  work  on  which  he  was  en- 
gaged at  the  time  of  his  death,  Nouveaux  Essais 
d' Anthropologic,  a  work  which  gave  a  new  impulse 
to  the  spiritual  school  of  philosophy  in  France, 
he  distinguishes  three  stages  in  the  moral  growth 
of  man.  The  first  stage  is  animal,  governed  by 
instincts  and  passions.  The  second  is  human, 
when  the  will  and  reason  triumph  over  the  merely 
animal  nature.  The  third  is  spiritual,  when  the 
will  itself  submits  to,  and  is  absorbed  in,  the 
guidance  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  If  the  second 
stage  is  characterised  by  effort,  the  essence  of  the 
third  is  love.  The  second  is  the  ideal  of  the 
Stoic  ;  the  third,  of  the  Christian.  The  great 
change  in  his  life  took  place  about  181 8.  In  his 
Pensees  for  March  28  to  April  i  in  that  year, 
he  comments  on  verse  28  of  Psalm  cxix.  :  "  The 
Word  that  can  make  me  live,  will  not  come  from 
me  nor  from  my  will,  nor  yet  from  anything  that 
I  hear  or  collect  from  without."  In  this  con- 
viction he  presses  forward  on  his  new  road.  It 
is  religion  alone  that  can  help  a  man  to  change 
his  nature  :  it  alone  gives  him,  as  he  says,  "  the 
wings  of  the  dove."  Without  this  aid,  man  would 
weary  of  the  struggle  ;  and  he  asks  for  help,  in  the 
words  of  Psalm  vi.,  verse  2,  "  Have  mercy  upon 
me,  O  Lord,  for  I  am  weak."  The  last  entry  in 
his  Diary,  May  17,  1824,  made  when  he  already 
felt  the  rapid  approach  of  his  fatal  illness,  is  a 
comment  on  Psalm  xxxviii.,  verse  7  :  "In  my 
weakness,  and  in  my  moral  and  physical  dis- 
comfort, I  cry  aloud  upon  my  cross,  '  Have  mercy 
upon  me,  O  Lord,  for  I  am  weak.  My  loins  are 
filled  with  a  sore  disease  ;  and  there  is  no  whole 
part  in  my  body.'  Woe,"  he  says,  "  to  the  man 
who  is  alone.  Unhappy  too  is  the  man,  however 
21 


308  I 68 8- I 900 

powerful  his  intellect,  or  however  great  his  human 
wisdom,  who  is  not  sustained  by  a  strength  and  a 
wisdom  higher  than  his  own.  The  true  wisdom, 
the  true  strength,  consists  in  feeling  the  support 
of  God.  If  he  has  not  this,  woe  to  him,  for  he  is 
alone  !  The  Stoic  stands  alone.  The  Christian 
walks  in  God's  presence  and  with  God,  through 
this  world  and  the  next." 

Here  are  the  words  of  Psalm  xxiii.,  verse  4, 
"  Thy  rod  and  thy  staff  comfort  me,"  which 
consoled  the  dying  hours  of  Sir  William  Hamilton 
( 1 788-1 856),  "  almost  the  only  earnest  man  " 
Carlyle  found  in  Edinburgh  ;  a  student  of  colossal 
learning,  yet  as  original  as  he  was  erudite,  who 
did  more  than  any  man  of  his  time  to  release 
the  reflective  thought  of  this  country  from  its  in- 
sularity, and  to  bind  it  to  all  that  was  best  in  the 
philosophy  of  Greece,  Germany,  and  France.  The 
insuperable  limitations  of  human  knowledge  were 
the  essence  of  his  teaching  ;  yet  it  was  on  the  m3^s- 
teries  which  lay  beyond  the  barrier  of  the  Unknow- 
able that  he  reposed  at  the  moment  of  his  death. 

Here  are  the  words  which  Sir  James  Simpson 
(181 1-70),  in  his  childhood  at  Bathgate,  knew  as 
his  "  Mother's  Psalm."  In  times  of  anxiety  and 
trial,  and  they  were  not  infrequent  in  the  baker's 
shop,  Mrs,  Simpson  used  to  repeat  Psalm  xx.  in 
the  Scottish  paraphrase  : 

"  Jehovah  hear  thee  in  the  day  when  trouble  He  doth  send, 
And  let  the  name  of  Jacob's  God  thee  from  all  ill  defend  : 
O  let  Him  help  send  from  above,  out  of  His  sanctuary  : 
From  Sion,  His  own  holy  hill,  let  Him  give  strength  to  thee." 

Etc.,  etc. 

The  memory  of  her  character  and  example  never 
faded  from  her  son's  mind.  Years  later,  when  he 
was  already  famous  as  the  discoverer  of  chloroform, 
and  at  the  head  of  his  profession,  Simpson  returned 
to  the  impressions  of  his  childhood,  and  it  became 
his  highest   ambition   to    make    known  to   others 


MYERS  309 

in  public  or  in  private,  the  peace  which  he  had 
found  in  the  Christian  faith. 

Here  again  are  the  words  of  Psalm  xxi.,  verses 
I,  2,  4,  with  which  Frederick  Myers  (i 843-1901) 
concludes  his  brief  and  beautiful  autobiography. 
He  was  a  poet  rather  than  a  man  of  science.  Yet 
he  spent  the  last  twenty  years  of  his  life  in  the 
effort  to  establish  by  strictly  scientific  methods 
of  enquiry  the  truth  of  his  conviction  that  we 
live  a  conscious  personal  life  after  death. 

"  Were  it  not  thus,  O  King  of  my  salvation, 
Many  would  curse  to  thee,  and  I  for  one, 
FUng  thee  thy  bliss  and  snatch  at  thy  damnation, 
Scorn  and  abhor  the  rising  of  the  sun." 

The  task  which  he  had  set  himself  might  seem 
repugnant  to  a  man  of  his  emotional  and  sensuous 
temperament.  Be  this  as  it  may,  he  owed  to  his 
poetic  nature  the  passionate  intensity  of  the 
impulse  which  drove  him  to  pursue  the  attempt 
to  pierce  the  veil  beyond  the  grave.  Though  he 
ceased,  perhaps,  to  believe  any  of  the  definite 
creeds  of  Christianity,  he  held  that  his  craving 
for  an  endless  life  was  a  true  development  of  the 
Christian  faith  in  the  evolution  of  the  Universe 
into  fuller  and  higher  existence,  and  that  man 
needs  a  summons  to  "  endless  advance,  by  endless 
effort,  and,  if  need  be,  endless  pain."  It  was  in 
the  confidence  born  of  this  conviction  that  he 
faced  the  mysteries  of  the  unknown.  "  And  now," 
he  says,  "  let  my  last  word  be  of  reverent  gratitude 
to  the  Unimaginable  Cause  of  all ;  to  whom  my  thanks 
ascend  in  ancient  and  solemn  language,  fuller, 
surely,  of  meaning  now  than  ever  heretofore  through- 
out the  whole  story  of  the  desires  of  men  : — 

"  The  King  shall  rejoice  in  thy  strength,  O  Lord :    exceeding  glad 

shall  he  be  of  thy  salvation. 
Thou  hast  given  him  his  heart's  desire ;  and  hast  not  denied  him 

the  request  of  his  lips. 
He  asked  life  of  thee,  and  thou  gavest  him  a  long  life  :  even  for 

ever  and  ever.'  " 


3IO  1688-1900 

Or,  lastly,  may  be  quoted  the  Sonnet,  sug- 
gested by  Psalm  xxvii.,  which  was  written  by  one  of 
the  ablest  of  modern  biologists,  George  John 
Romanes  : — 

"  I  ask  not  for  Thy  love,  O  Lord  ;    the  days 

Can  never  come  when  anguish  shall  atone. 

Enough  for  me  were  but  Thy  pity  shown, 
To  me  as  to  the  stricken  sheep  that  strays, 
With  ceaseless  cry  for  unforgotten  ways — 

O  lead  me  back  to  pastures  I  have  known, 

Or  find  me  in  the  wilderness  alone, 
And  slay  me,  as  the  hand  of  mercy  slays. 

"  I  ask  not  for  Thy  love  ;    nor  e'en  as  much 
As  for  a  hope  on  Thy  dear  breast  to  lie  ; 

But  be  Thou  still  my  Shepherd — still  with  such 
Compassion  as  may  melt  and  such  a  cry  ; 

That  so  I  hear  Thy  feet,  and  feel  Thy  touch, 
And  dimly  see  Thy  face  ere  yet  I  die." 

Literature  has  felt  the  same  spell  as  that  which 
fell  upon  philosophy  and  science.  Men  of  letters  in 
their  lives  or  in  their  writings  have  acknowledged 
the  universality  of  the  Psalms. 

To  two  paraphrases  of  the  Psalms  Joseph 
Addison  owes  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  his  fame. 
"  David,"  he  writes  in  the  Spectator,  "  has  very 
beautifully  expressed  this  steady  reliance  on  God 
Almighty  in  his  23rd  Psalm,  which  is  a  kind  of 
pastoral  hymn,  and  filled  with  those  allusions  which 
are  usually  found  in  that  kind  of  writing."  .  .  , 
Then  follows  the  well-known  version  of  Psalm  xxiii., 
"  The  Lord  my  pasture  shall  prepare."  ^  A  month 
later  appeared  an  essay  on  the  means  of  confirming 
human  faith.  It  closes  with  the  equally  famous 
version  of  Psalm  xix.,  "  The  spacious  firmament  on 
high."  2  Throughout  the  English-speaking  world 
the  two  paraphrases  of  the  Psalms  are  known  to 
millions  who  know  nothing  of  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley 
or  of  Cato. 

1  spectator,  July  26,  171 2.     No.  441. 
*  Ibid.,  August  23,  1712.     No.  465. 


WILLIAM  COWPER  311 

It  was  with  a  psalm  that  Wilham  Cowper,  a 
timid,  dehcate,  sensitive  child  in  Dr.  Pitman's 
School  at  Market  Street,  Hertfordshire,  nerved 
himself  to  endure  the  torture  inflicted  by  an  elder 
boy.  "  I  well  remember,"  he  says,  "  being  afraid 
to  lift  my  eyes  upon  him  higher  than  his  knees  ; 
and  that  I  knew  him  better  by  his  shoe-buckles 
than  by  any  other  part  of  his  dress."  Yet,  as  he  sat 
on  a  bench  in  the  schoolroom  fearing  the  immediate 
coming  of  his  tormentor,  he  found  in  the  text,  "  I 
wdll  not  fear  what  man  doeth  unto  me  "  (Ps.  cxviii., 
verse  6),  "  a  degree  of  trust  and  confidence  in  God 
that  would  have  been  no  disgrace  to  a  much  more 
experienced  Christian." 

In  the  language  of  the  Psalms,  again,  he  expressed 
the  despondency  which  ended  in  his  attempted 
suicide,  and  removal  to  a  madhouse.  It  was  a 
time  when,  to  quote  his  own  description  of  his  state 
of  mind, 

"  Man  disavows,  and  Deity  disowns  me. 
Hell  might  afford  my  miseries  a  shelter  ; 
Therefore  Hell  keeps  her  ever-hungry  mouths  all 
Bolted  against  me." 

Placed  in  Dr.  Cotton's  asylum  at  St.  Alban's,  he 
recovered.  His  joy,  like  his  despair,  is  clothed  in 
the  words  of  the  Psalms  :  "  The  Lord  is  my  strength 
and  my  song,  and  is  become  my  salvation  "  ^Ps. 
cxviii.,  verse  14).  "  I  said,  I  shall  not  die,  but  live, 
and  declare  the  works  of  the  Lord  ;  he  has  chas- 
tened me  sore,  but  not  given  me  over  unto  death. 
O  give  thanks  unto  the  Lord,  for  his  mercy  en- 
dureth  for  ever  !  "  (Ps.  cxviii.,  verses  17,  18,  29). 
It  became  his  ambition  to  be  the  poet  of  Christianity, 
and  the  fruits  remain  in  such  hymns  as,  "  God 
moves  in  a  mysterious  wa}","  or,  "  Hark,  my  soul, 
it  is  the  Lord,"  or,  "  O  for  a  closer  walk  with  God." 
It  is  by  a  reference  to  a  psalm  that  Boswell  de- 
fends the  minuteness  of  detail  with  which,  through- 
out  the   most   famous   biography   in   the    English 


312  1688-1900 

language,  he  has  noted  the  conversations  of  Dr. 
Johnson.  He  quotes  from  Archbishop  Seeker, 
in  whose  tenth  sermon  there  is  the  following 
passage  : — "  Rabbi  David  Kimchi,  a  noted  Jewish 
commentator,  who  lived  about  five  hundred  years 
ago,  explains  that  passage  in  the  ist  Psalm,  His  leaf 
also  shall  not  wither,  from  rabbins  yet  older  than 
himself,  thus  :  That  even  the  idle  talk,  so  he  expresses 
it,  of  a  good  man  ought  to  be  regarded  ;  the  most 
superfluous  things  he  saith  are  always  of  value." 

In  1826,  under  the  title  of  Boswell  Redivivus, 
William  Hazlitt,  the  essayist,  began  to  publish  the 
celebrated  conversations,  which  he  held  with  James 
Northcote,  the  portrait-painter,  at  the  latter's 
home  in  Argyll  Place.  Full  of  shrewd  criticisms  of 
men  and  things,  flavoured  with  caustic  wit  and 
bold  sarcasm,  they  flattered  the  vanity  of  North- 
cote. But  where  the  broad  Devonshire  accent  of 
the  artist  ends,  and  where  the  Irish  Boswell  begins, 
it  is  impossible  to  say.  Whether  the  view^s  ex- 
pressed are  those  of  Hazlitt  or  of  Northcote,  the 
Conversations  contain  a  passage  on  the  Psalms, 
which  is  at  least  interesting  as  a  piece  of  literar}'' 
criticism  characteristic  of  the  period.  Hazlitt  says 
that  in  a  knot  of  "  sceptics  and  philosophical  un- 
believers "  he  had  "  once  given  great  offence  "  by 
contending  that  Jacob's  Dream  was  finer  than 
anything  in  Shakespeare  ;  and  "  that  Hamlet  would 
bear  no  comparison  with,  at  least,  one  character  in 
the  New  Testament.  A  young  poet  had  said  on 
this  occasion,  he  did  not  like  the  Bible,  because 
there  was  nothing  about  flowers  in  it  ;  and  I  asked 
him  if  he  had  forgot  that  passage, '  Behold  the  lilies 
of  the  field,'  etc."  "  Yes,"  said  Northcote,  "and  in 
the  Psalms  .  .  .  there  are  passages  of  unrivalled 
beauty,  ...  in  the  Psalms,  I  think  there  is  that 
passage,  '  He  openeth  his  hands,  and  the  earth  is 
filled  with  plenteousness  ' ;  he  '  turneth  away  his 
face,  and  we  are  troubled  ' ;  he  hideth  himself,  and 


WALTER  SCOTT  313 

'  we  are  left  in  darkness  '  [apparently  an  allusion 
to  Psalm  civ.,  verses  28-29]  ;  or,  again,  how  fine  is 
that  expression,  '  All  the  beasts  of  the  forest  are 
mine,  and  so  are  the  cattle  upon  a  thousand  hills  !  ' 
[Ps.  1.,  verse  10].  What  an  expanse,  and  what  a 
grasp  of  the  subject !  Everything  is  done  upon  so 
large  a  scale,  and  yet  with  such  ease,  as  if  seen  from 
the  highest  point  of  view.  It  has  mightily  a  look 
of  inspiration  or  of  being  dictated  by  a  '  superior 
intelligence.'  "  It  is  the  power  of  the  Psalms  to  lift 
us  out  of  our  selves,  the  sublimity  which  is  not 
merely  of  the  earth,  but  reaches  to  heaven,  the 
faculty  that  "  enlarges  and  beautifies  objects  even 
beyond  nature,"  which  impressed  Hazlitt  and  his 
friend,  and  "  merited  the  epithet  divine." 

Of  Walter  Scott's  familiarity  with  the  Psalms,  his 
novels  give  abundant  evidence.  One  illustration 
from  Ivanhoe  may  be  added  to  those  already  given. 
Rebecca,  a  prisoner  at  Templestowe  on  the  eve  of 
the  ordeal  by  battle  which  was  to  decide  her  fate, 
had  finished  her  evening  devotions,  when  Brian 
de  Bois-Guilbert  entered  the  prison-chamber  for  his 
final  interview  with  the  beautiful  and  high-souled 
Jewess.  Her  prayers  ended  with  a  Psalm,  part  of 
which  recalls  the  ancient  Celtic  Latin  hymn  Ignis 
Creator  Igneus.  Is  it  possible  that  Scott  had  in  his 
mind  not  only  Psalm  cxiv.,  but  the  hymn,  when  he 
wrote  the  lines  that  have  found  a  place  in  Scottish 
hymn-books  ?     The  first  stanza  only  is  quoted  : — 

"  When  Israel,  of  the  Lord  beloved, 

Out  of  the  land  of  bondage  came, 
Her  father's  God  before  her  moved, 

An  awful  guide,  in  smoke  and  flame  ; 
By  day,  along  th'  astonished  lands 

The  cloudy  pillar  glided  slow  ; 
By  night,  Arabia's  crimson'd  sands 

Return'd  the  fiery  column's  glow." 

Scraps  of  the  Psalms  were  among  the  last  words 
which  his  friends  could  distinguish  from  his  lips. 
A  tour  on  the  Continent  failed  to  restore  his  health. 


314  1688-1900 

But,  from  the  moment  when,  rounding  the  hill  at 
Ladhope,  he  caught  his  first  glimpse  of  the  outline 
of  the  Eildons  and  of  the  towers  of  Abbotsford,  he 
revived.  Surrounded  by  his  dogs,  happy  in  his 
home,  conscious  and  composed,  he  almost  seemed 
to  have  hope  of  recovery.  On  July  17,  1832,  he 
insisted  upon  being  taken  to  the  study,  and  placed 
at  his  desk.  His  daughter  put  the  pen  into  his 
hand,  and  he  endeavoured  to  close  his  fingers  upon 
it  ;  but  they  refused  their  office — it  dropped  on  the 
paper.  He  sank  back  among  his  pillows,  silent 
tears  rolling  down  his  cheek.  The  gallant  spirit  of 
the  worn-out  man  had  made  its  last  effort. 
"  Friends,"  said  he,  "  don't  let  me  expose  myself — 
get  me  to  bed — that's  the  only  place."  From  this 
time  his  strength  gradually  declined.  His  mind 
was,  for  the  most  part,  hopelessly  obscured  ;  yet, 
when  there  was  any  symptom  of  consciousness, 
fragments  of  the  Stabal  Mater  and  the  Dies  Irce 
could  sometimes  be  distinguished,  mingled  with 
passages  from  the  Bible,  or  verses  of  the  Psalms  in 
the  old  Scottish  metrical  paraphrase.  He  died 
September  21,  1832. 

"  Half  a  Scot  by  birth,"  Byron  spent  his  childish 
years  at  Aberdeen.  There,  from  the  teaching  of 
his  nurse,  he  gained  a  love  and  knowledge  of  the 
Bible  which  he  never  lost.  Many  of  the  Psalms, 
beginning  with  the  ist  and  23rd,  he  learned  by 
heart.  Still  a  mere  boy,  yet  already  subject  to  fits 
of  melancholy,  he  found  expression  for  his  mood  in 
a  paraphrase  of  Psalm  Iv.,  verse  6  : — 

"  Fain  would  I  fly  the  haunts  of  men — 
I  seek  to  shun,  not  hate  mankind  ; 
My  breast  requires  the  sullen  glen 

Whose  gloom  may  suit  a  darken'd  mind. 

"  Oh  !    that  to  me  the  wings  were  given, 
Which  bear  the  turtle  to  her  nest  ! 
Then  would  I  cleave  the  vault  of  Heaven, 
To  flee  away,  and  be  at  rest." 


HOGG,  WORDSWORTH,  TAYLOR      315 

On  the  Psalms,  as  his  mother  repeated  them  to 
him  in  the  metrical  version  of  Scotland,  James 
Hogg,  the  Ettrick  Shepherd,  nursed  his  childish 
imagination,  and  mingled  with  them  her  tales  of 
giants,  kelpies,  brownies,  and  other  aerial  creations 
of  the  fairy  world.  Before  he  knew  his  letters  he 
could  say  Psalm  cxxii.,  and,  as  he  grew  older,  he 
learned  by  heart  the  greater  part  of  the  Psalter. 
The  Bible  was,  in  fact,  the  herdboy's  only  book. 
Among  the  pastoral  solitudes  of  Ettrick,  the  atmo- 
sphere of  which  was  charged  with  legendary  lore,  and 
throbbed  with  the  metrical  beat  of  David's  Psalms, 
he  wove  into  one  exquisite  vision  the  ideal  and  the 
actual  scenes  which  formed  his  mental  and  bodily 
world. 

Here — from  the  lips  of  the  simple  dalesmen  whom 
Wordsworth  loved,  rising  out  of  the  Westmoreland 
valleys  and  rolling  among  the  hills  whence  he  drew 
the  healing  power  of  his  verse — comes, 

"  Mournful,  deep,  and  slow 
The  cadence,  as  of  psalms — a  funeral  dirge  ! 
We  listened,  looking  down  upon  the  hut, 
But  seeing  no  one  ;    meanwhile  from  below 
The  strain  continued,  spiritual  as  before  ; 
But  now  distinctly  could  I  recognise 
These  words  :    '  Shall  in  the  grave  thy  love  be  known, 
In  death  thy  faithfulness  ?  '  "  ^ 

Here,  in  one  of  Sir  Henry  Taylor's  least  known 
plays, 2  Fiordelisa  sings  her  song,  founded  on  Psalm 
Iv.,  verse  6 — a  song,  she  says,  such  as  the  birds  sang 
to  Adam  out  of  the  tree  of  life  in  the  golden  prime, 
when  they  knew  better  than  to  build  their  nests  in 
the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil : — 

"  Oh,  had  I  the  wings  of  a  dove, 
Soon  would  I  fly  away. 
And  never  would  think  of  my  love. 
Or  not  for  a  year  and  a  day  : 
If  I  had  the  wings  of  a  dove. 

^  The  Excursion  :  The  Solitary.     Psalm  Ixxxviii.,  verse  ii. 
2  The  Virgin  Widow  ;  or,  a  Sicilian  Summer,  Act.  III.  sc.  i. 


3i6  I 688-1 900 

"  I  would  press  the  air  to  my  breast, 
I  would  love  the  changeful  sky, 
In  the  murmuring  leaves  I  would  set  up  my  rest 
And  bid  the  world  good-bye  : 
If  I  had  the  wings  of  a  dove." 

Here,  in  the  mouth,  not  of  one  of  his  mediaeval 
figures,  but  of  a  homely  rustic,  Tennyson  ^  places 
the  words  of  Psalm  Ixxxvi.,  verse  15  : — 

"  Sin  ?     O  yes — we  are  sinners,  I  know — let  all  that  be. 
And  read  me  a  Bible  verse  of  the  Lord's  goodwill  towards  men — 
'  Full  of  compassion  and  mercy,  the  Lord,'  let  me  hear  it  again  ; 
'  Full  of  compassion  and  mercy — long  suffering.'     Yes,  O  yes  ! 
For  the  lawyer  is  born  but  to  murder,  the  Saviour  lives  but  to  bless." 

Here,  Matthew  Arnold,  quoting  Psalm  xlix., 
verse  7,  expresses  his  melancholy  sense  of  the 
dumbness  of  Christ's  death-place,  the  silence  of  the 
sacred  land,  the  isolation  of  man,  and  his  inability 
to  rise  out  of  philosophic  calm  into  the  exaltation  of 
unquestioning  faith — 

"  From  David's  lips  this  word  did  roll, 
'Tis  true  and  living  yet  : 
No  man  can  save  his  brother's  soul, 
Nor  pay  his  brother's  debt. 

"  Alone,  self-poised,  henceforward  man 
Must  labour  ;    must  resign 
His  all  too  human  creeds,  and  scan 
Simply  the  way  divine  !  "  - 

Here  are  the  lines  which  Browning  assigns  to 
Pompilia,  as,  before  her  flight,  she  sat  at  the  Carnival 
with  her  tyrant  husband  crouching  behind  in  the 
shadow  : — 

"  There  is  a  psalm  Don  Celestine  recites, 
'  Had  I  a  dove's  wings,  how  I  fain  would  flee  !  ' 
The  psalm  runs  not,  '  I  hope,   I  pray,  for  wings,' — 
Not  '  If  wings  fall  from  heaven,   I  fix  them  fast,' — 
Simply,  '  How  good  it  were  to  fly  and  rest. 
Have  hope  now,  and  one  day  expect  content ! 

*  "  Rizpah,"  stanza  xiii. 

^  "  Oberman  Once  More."  In  the  1888  edition,  the  first  of  the  two 
stanzas  is  omitted.  Both  are  given  as  printed  in  the  edition  of 
1867. 


ELIZABETH  BARRETT  BROWNING     317 

How  well  to  do  what  I  shall  never  do  !  ' 
So  I  said,   '  Had  there  been  a  man  like  that, 
To  lift  me  with  his  strength  out  of  all  strife 
Into  the  calm,  how  I  could  fly  and  rest  !  "  ^ 

Here  is  the  favourite  verse  of  Elizabeth  Barrett 
Browning,  whose  confidence  in  God's  government  of 
the  world,  though  tearful,  was  unshaken  : 

"  Of  all  the  thoughts  of  God  that  are 
Borne  inward  into  Souls  afar. 

Along  the  Psalmist's  music  deep, 
Now  tell  me  if  that  any  is. 
For  gift  or  grace  surpassing  this  : 
'  He  giveth  His  beloved — sleep  ?  '  "  2 

Or  here,  drawn  from  Psalm  Ixxx,  verse  5,  "  Thou 
feedest  them  with  the  bread  of  tears,  and  givest 
them  plenteousness  of  tears  to  drink,"  is  her  lesson 
of  patience  : 

"  Shall  we,  then,  who  have  issued  from  the  dust. 
And  there  return — shall  we,  who  toil  for  dust, 
And  wrap  our  winnings  in  this  dusty  life, 

Say,  '  No  more  tears.  Lord  God  ! 

The  measure  runneth  o'er  ?  '  "  ^ 

Here,  to  turn  from  poetry  to  prose,  is  a  character- 
istic passage  in  Esmond,  which  Thackeray  founds 
on  Psalm  cxxvi.,  verses  1,6,  7.  In  Winchester 
Cathedral,  Harry  Esmond  sees  again  the  widowed 
Lady  Castlewood,  who  in  his  youth  had  been  to 
him  sister,  mother,  goddess,  and  whom  he  now 
loves  as  a  woman.  The  period  of  their  separation 
and  estrangement  was  ended.  It  is  in  the  words  of 
the  Psalm  that  she  confesses  her  love.  "  I  knew," 
she  says,  "  that  you  would  come  back.  .  .  .  And 
to-day,  Henry,  in  the  anthem,  when  they  sang  it, 
*  When  the  Lord  turned  again  the  captivity  of  Zion, 
we  were  like  them  that  dream,'  I  thought,  yes,  like 
them  that  dream — them  that  dream.  And  then  it 
went, '  They  that  sow  in  tears  shall  reap  in  joy  ;  and 

1  Ring  and  the  Book.     Pompilia,  11.  ggi-iooo. 

2  "  The  Sleep,"  stanza  i.  Psalm  cxxvii.,  verse  3. 
^  "  The  Measure,"  stanza  ii. 


31 8  1688-1900 

he  that  goeth  forth  and  weepeth,  shall  doubtless 
come  again  with  rejoicing,  bringing  his  sheaves  with 
him  ;  '  I  looked  up  from  the  book,  and  saw  you.  I 
was  not  surprised  when  I  saw  you.  I  knew  you 
would  come,  my  dear,  and  saw  the  gold  sunshine 
round  your  head.  .  .  .  But  now  —  now  you  are 
come  again,  bringing  your  sheaves  with  you,  my 
dear."  She  burst  into  a  wild  flood  of  weeping  as 
she  spoke  ;  she  laughed  and  sobbed  on  the  young 
man's  heart,  crying  out  wildly,  "  Bringing  your 
sheaves  with  you — your  sheaves  with  you  !  "^ 

"  It  is  He  that  hath  made  us,  and  not  we  our- 
selves," is  the  text  chosen  by  Edward  Fitzgerald 
for  his  tomb.  The  choice  seems  the  defence  for  a 
career  that,  to  many,  and  perhaps  to  the  man  him- 
self at  some  moments  of  his  life,  seemed  wasted. 
Yet  Fitzgerald  had  won  from  Tennyson  a  generous 
tribute  of  praise  for  his 

"...  golden  Eastern  lay, 
Than  which  I  know  no  version  done 
In  English  more  divinely  well." 

Loving  and  enjoying  leisure,  he  lived  remote  from 
bustle  and  publicity,  admitting  into  his  paradise  of 
music  and  books  nothing  that  did  not  "  breathe 
content  and  virtue."  Born  with  an  original  mind 
and  character,  and  never  endeavouring  to  rub 
them  smooth  by  contact  with  conventionalities,  he 
remained  what  he  was,  and  made  his  life  his  own 
peculiar  creation. 

Outside  a  narrow  circle  of  his  contemporaries 
Fitzgerald  was  barely  known.  But  few  writers 
influenced  their  generation  more  powerfully  than 
Ruskin  and  Carlyle.  In  the  purport  of  their  message 
they  differed  ;  in  their  manner  of  delivering  it,  they 
were  absolutely  opposed.  Yet,  apart  from  the 
affection  which  Carlyle  bore  to  his  "  aethereal  " 
Ruskin,  they  had  many  points  in  common.  Both 
urged    the    necessity    of   individuals    and    nations 

^  Esmond,  Book  ii.  chap,  vi. 


CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN  319 

obeying  the  commandments  of  God,  Carlyle  insist- 
ing on  the  retribution  that  awaits  disobedience, 
Ruskin  emphasising  the  new  powers  that  glad 
obedience  engenders.  Both  loved  the  Psalms. 
"  David's  life  and  history,"  says  Carlyle,  "  as  written 
in  those  Psalms  of  his,  I  consider  to  be  the  truest 
emblem  ever  given  of  a  man's  moral  progress  and 
warfare  here  below.  All  earnest  souls  will  ever 
discern  in  it  the  faithful  struggle  of  an  earnest 
human  soul  towards  what  is  good  and  best. 
Struggle  often  baffled,  sore  baffled,  down  as  into 
entire  wreck  ;  yet  a  struggle  never  ended  ;  ever, 
with  tears,  repentance,  true  unconquerable  purpose, 
begun  anew."  As  both  Carlyle  and  Ruskin  felt 
the  power  of  the  Psalms,  so  the  spirit  of  both  was 
Hebraic.  Neither  was  content  to  be  a  mere  in- 
tellectual thinker  ;  both  were,  above  all,  teachers — 
aesthetic,  moral,  political  teachers.  Both  were  on 
fire  not  only  to  know  the  right,  but  to  have  the  right 
done.  They  had  the  intense  zeal  for  action,  com- 
bined with  the  undoubting  afflrmation,of  the  ancient 
prophets.  Both  recognised  the  effect  of  a  man's  life 
on  his  opinions  and  work  ;  both  insisted  on  the 
intimate  connection  between  the  moral  conditions 
under  which  a  man  thinks,  and  the  external  form 
or  action  in  which  his  thought  is  clothed.  It  is 
this  perception  which  gives  to  Carlyle 's  historical 
writing  its  vivid  human  interest  ;  it  is  on  this  per- 
ception that  Ruskin  founds  his  view,  that  only  the 
pure  in  heart  can  interpret  Nature  adequately,  or 
rise  to  the  highest  expression  of  truth  and  beauty. 

To  compare  the  influence  of  the  tw^o  men  would  be 
scarcely  relevant  to  the  subject.  It  is,  however, 
probably  true,  that  Carlyle  taught  the  thinkers, 
Ruskin  the  doers  :  Carlyle  stimulated  morals, 
Ruskin  action.  Carlyle 's  gospel  of  work,  force, 
and  strength  supplied  no  additional  impulses 
beyond  those  by  which  men  of  practical  energy  felt 
themselves  to  be  already  actuated  ;    but  theorists 


320  1688-1900 

were  roused  by  the  suggestion  of  the  advent  of  a 
leader,  who,  in  his  strength,  should  govern  by  the 
profoundest  principles  that  abstract  thought  could 
formulate.  Ruskin's  influence,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  been  chiefly  felt  in  actual  life.  In  the  presence 
of  nature,  he  gave  to  ordinary  people  eyes.  In 
aesthetic  criticism,  he  opposed  the  spiritual  to  the 
sensuous  theory  of  Art.  In  painting,  he  gave  a  new 
creed  to  a  new  school.  In  architecture,  he  stimu- 
lated the  Gothic  revival.  In  the  political  and  social 
world,  his  insistence  on  the  moral  dignity  and 
destiny  of  man  created  new  standards  as  the  tests 
of  economic  questions,  and  humanised  the  iron  laws 
of  supply  and  demand. 

Ruskin,  as  soon  as  he  was  able  to  read  with 
fluency,  studied  the  Bible  by  his  mother's  side  as 
few  children  were  ever  taught  to  study  its  pages. 
Among  the  passages  that  he  learned  by  heart,  were 
Psalms  xxiii.,  xxxii.,  xc,  xci.,  ciii.,  cxii.,  cxix., 
cxxxix.  Of  Psalm  cxix.  he  says  :  "  It  is  strange, 
that  of  all  the  pieces  of  the  Bible  which  my  mother 
thus  taught  me,  that  which  cost  me  most  to  learn, 
and  which  was,  to  my  child's  mind,  chiefly  repulsive 
— the  119th  Psalm — has  now  become  of  all  the 
most  precious  to  me,  in  its  overflowing  and  glorious 
passion  of  love  for  the  law  of  God." 

From  the  Psalms  might  be  collected,  so  Ruskin 
taught,  a  complete  system  of  personal,  economical, 
and  political  prudence — a  compendium  of  human 
life.  What  "  Tibullus  "  in  Jonson's  Poetaster  says 
of  Virgil,  Ruskin  in  effect  says  of  the  Psalmist's 
work  : 

"  That  which  he  hath  writ 
Is  with  such  judgment  labour'd,  and  distill'd 
Through  all  the  needful  uses  of  our  lives, 
That  could  a  man  remember  but  his  lines. 
He  should  not  touch  at  any  serious  point 
But  he  might  breathe  his  spirit  out  of  him." 

In  Our  Fathers  Have  Told  Us,  Ruskin  urges  that  the 


A  MIRROR  OF  THE  WORLD  321 

first  half  of  the  Psalter  sums  up  all  the  wisdom  of 
society  and  of  the  individual.  Psalms  i.,  viii.,  xii., 
xiv.,  XV.,  xix.,  xxiii.,  xxiv.,  well  studied  and  be- 
lieved, suffice  for  all  personal  guidance  ;  Psalms 
xlviii.,  Ixxii.,  Ixxv.,  contain  the  law  and  the 
prophecy  of  all  just  government  ;  Psalm  civ. 
anticipates  every  triumph  of  natural  science.  On 
the  Psalms  is  also  founded  much  of  Ruskin's  aesthetic 
teaching.  The  guiding  principle  of  Modern  Painters 
is  that  glad  submission  to  the  Divine  law  which  is 
the  keynote  to  Psalm  cxix.  Throughout  those  parts 
of  the  Bible  which,  says  Ruskin,  people  "  are  in- 
tended to  make  most  personally  their  own  (the 
Psalms),  it  is  always  the  law  which  is  spoken  of  with 
chief  joy.  The  Psalms  respecting  mercy  are  often 
sorrowful,  as  in  thought  of  what  it  cost  ;  but  those 
respecting  the  law  are  always  full  of  delight.  David 
cannot  contain  himself  for  joy  thinking  of  it — he  is 
never  weary  of  its  praise  :  *  How  love  I  Thy  law  ! 
it  is  my  meditation  all  the  day.  Thy  testimonies 
are  my  delight  and  my  counsellors  ;  sweeter  also 
than  honey  and  the  honeycomb  '  "  (Ps.  cxix.,  verses 
97,  24,  103).  By  the  love  that  inspires  obedience  to 
law,  Ruskin  was  separated  from  the  rising  school  of 
science  ;  by  the  fruits  of  that  obedience — precision, 
exactitude,  fidelity,  realism — he  was  distinguished 
from  the  followers  of  the  expiring  romantic  school 
of  art.  His  own  teaching  was  that,  by  the  two 
qualities  in  combination,  in  other  words,  by  docility 
and  faith,  men  may  win  back  the  childlike  heart 
which  alone  penetrates  the  mysteries  of  nature,  and 
regain  the  power  of  expressing  the  beauty  and  truth 
with  which  the  external  world  reveals  the  Divine 
law. 

Throughout  all  Ruskin 's  work  there  runs  this 
connecting  link  of  glad  submission  to  the  law  of 
God.  His  numerous  volumes,  touching  manifold 
sides  of  life,  resemble  those  pious  tomes  of  the 
Middle  Ages  into  which  men  wove  the  totality  of 


322  1688-I9OO 

their  learning  and  the  ardour  of  their  faith.  Their 
design  seems,  and  is,  disordered  by  endless 
digressions  ;  but  all  the  lines  converge  on  the 
Divine  object  of  their  love.  So  Ruskin's  work  is 
at  once  a  Speculum  Mundi  and  a  Speculum  Dei  ; 
it  is  a  mirror  of  the  world  and  of  God  in  the  world. 
Through  all  his  books  runs  the  golden  thread  of 
cheerful  obedience  to  the  Divine  law.  Especially 
is  this  true  of  Modern  Painters,  which  is  not  only 
a  beautiful  treatise  on  art,  but  also  the  impassioned 
expression  of  an  adoring  faith.  The  subject  is 
handled  as  it  might  have  been  treated  by  a  mediaeval 
mystic,  or  a  Franciscan  poet.  Still  more  is  it 
conceived  in  the  spirit  of  the  Psalmist.  As,  in  his 
exquisite  prose,  Ruskin  interprets  to  the  nineteenth 
century  God's  message  of  creation,  so  David  sang 
of  God's  handiwork,  while  he  shepherded  his  sheep 
on  the  lonely  uplands  of  Palestine.  "  He  who,  in 
any  way  " — the  words  are  Carl3de's — "  shews  us 
better  than  we  knew  before,  that  a  lily  of  the  fields 
is  beautiful,  does  he  not  shew  it  us  as  an  effluence 
of  the  Fountain  of  all  Beauty  ;  as  the  handwriting, 
made  visible  there,  of  the  great  Maker  of  the 
Universe  ?  He  has  sung  for  us,  made  us  sing 
with  him,  *  a  little  verse  of  a  sacred  Psalm."  " 


}    M 


CHAPTER    XII 

1 68  8- 1 900  (continued) 

The  Psalms  in  philanthropic  movements — Prison  Reform  and  John 
Howard  ;  in  missionary  enterprises — John  Eliot,  David 
Brainerd,  William  Carey,  Henry  Martyn,  Alexander  Duff,  Allen 
Gardiner,  David  Livingstone,  Bishop  Hannington  ;  in  political 
life — Colonel  Gardiner,  Thomas  Carlyle,  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle  ; 
in  secular  history — Gladstone,  Abraham  Lincoln,  James  Gar- 
field ;  in  ordinary  life — Brittany  and  La  Vendee,  the  execution 
of  Madame  de  Noailles,  the  evacuation  of  Moscow  in  181 2,  the 
battle  of  Waterloo,  the  Revolution  of  1848,  Maxime  du  Camp 
at  Ulm  and  Bourget  in  the  Franco-German  War  of  1 870-1, 
the  Empress  Eugenie  at  Ryde,  Captain  Conolly  at  Bokhara 
and  Havelock  at  Jellalabad,  Duff,  Edwards,  and  '  Quaker  ' 
Wallace  in  the  Indian  Mutiny,  the  Boer  War. 

IN  the  preceding  chapter,  the  influence  of  the 
Psalms  during  the  last  two  centuries  has  been 
illustrated  from  the  lives  and  writings  of  leaders 
of  religion,  science,  and  literature.  Within  the 
same  period,  their  power  may  be  traced,  not  only 
in  philanthropic  movements  or  missionary  enter- 
prises, but  also  in  ordinary  life,  in  politics,  and  in 
secular  history. 

The  religious  reawakening  which  revolutionised 
England  in  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
inspired  numerous  efforts  towards  social  progress. 
The  abolition  of  the  Slave  Trade,  the  foundation 
of  the  Bible  Society,  the  educational  work  of 
Raikes  and  Lancaster,  were  the  outcome  of  new  and 
higher  standards  of  life.  Among  efforts  to  improve 
social  conditions,  an  honourable  place  belongs  to 
the  struggle  for  Prison  Reform,  which  is  inseparably 
associated  with  the  name  of  John  Howard  ( 1 726-90) . 
22 


3^4  1688-1900 

In  all  the  stages  of  its  progress,  the  Psalms  were 
at  work. 

In  1755,  on  Howard's  voyage  to  Lisbon,  the 
Hanover  packet,  in  which  he  was  sailing,  was 
captured  by  a  French  privateer.  Herded  together 
in  a  filthy  dungeon  at  Brest,  he  and  his  companions 
experienced  the  horrors  of  imprisonment.  The 
memory  of  his  own  sufferings  may  well  have 
lingered  in  his  mind.  But  it  was  not  till  1773, 
nearly  twenty  years  afterwards,  that  he  began 
to  devote  himself  to  Prison  Reform.  While  serving 
as  High  Sheriff  for  the  County,  Howard  officially 
inspected  the  Bedfordshire  jails.  Horror-struck 
at  the  sufferings  of  the  prisoners,  whether  criminals 
or  debtors,  he  began  his  investigations  in  England, 
and  gradually  extended  his  visits  to  Scotland, 
Ireland,  and  the  Continent.  In  the  damp,  un- 
wholesome cells,  ill-lighted  and  badly-ventilated, 
where  prisoners  were  confined  without  exercise 
or  employment,  jail  fever  and  smallpox  raged. 
Howard's  visits  were  paid  in  peril  of  his  life.  But 
"  Hold  thou  up  my  goings  "  (Ps.  xvii.,  verse  5) 
was  the  text  which  encouraged  him  to  persevere. 
The  fever  had  no  terrors  for  him.  "  Trusting," 
he  says,  "  in  Divine  Providence,  and  believing 
myself  in  the  way  of  my  dut}',  I  visit  the  most 
noxious  cells,  and  while  so  doing  '  I  fear  no  evil  '  " 
(Ps.  xxiii.,  verse  4).  Yet  he  did  not  always  escape. 
At  Lille,  in  May  1783,  he  caught  the  fever.  It  is 
in  the  language  of  the  Psalms  that  he  expresses 
his  gratitude  for  his  recovery  :  "  For  many  daj'-s 
I  have  been  in  pain  and  sorrow,  the  sentence  of 
death  was,  as  it  were,  upon  me,  but  I  cried  unto 
the  Lord,  and  He  heard  me.  Blessed,  for  ever 
blessed,  be  the  name  of  the  Lord."  A  deeply 
religious  man,  he  jots  down  in  his  memorandum 
books  his  pious  ejaculations  and  secret  aspirations. 
Often  his  thoughts  are  couched  in  the  words  of 
the    Psalmist.     As    an    example,    may    be    quoted 


THE  PRISON  REFORMER  325 

two  entries  from  his  Diary,  made  when  he  was 
lying  ill  at  the  Hague  in  1778  :  "  May  iT)th. — In 
pain  and  anguish  all  Night  .  .  .  help,  Lord,  for 
vain  is  the  help  of  Man.  In  Thee  do  I  put  my 
trust,  let  me  not  be  confounded.  May  14th. — 
This  Night  my  Fever  abaited,  my  Pains  less  .  .  . 
Righteous  art  Thou  in  all  Thy  ways,  and  holy  in 
all  Thy  works  .  .  .  bring  me  out  of  the  Furnace 
as  Silver  purified  seven  times." 

From  a  Psalm  (Ixxix.,  verse  12)  is  taken  the 
motto  on  the  title-page  of  his  Account  of 
Lazarettos,  "  O  let  the  sorrowful  sighing  of  the 
prisoners  come  before  thee,"  and  he  chose  it 
because  he  had  himself  observed  the  effect  which 
the  words  produced  on  the  minds  of  the  prisoners 
in  Lancaster  Gaol.  In  1789,  he  left  England 
on  the  journey  which  ended  with  his  death 
at  Kherson.  He  had  previously  chosen  the 
inscription  for  his  monument,  left  directions 
for  his  funeral,  and  even  selected  the  text 
for  the  sermon  which  his  friend  and  pastor 
would  preach  on  the  event.  The  text  was 
Psalm  xvii.,  verse  16.  "  That  text,"  he  says, 
"  is  the  most  appropriate  to  my  feelings  of 
any  I  know  ;  for  I  can  indeed  join  with  the 
Psalmist  in  saying,  '  As  for  me,  I  will  behold 
Thy  face  in  righteousness  ;  and  when  I  awake 
up  after  Thy  likeness,  I  shall  be  satisfied  with 
it.'  " 

Howard's  work  among  prisoners  was  continued, 
on  different  lines,  by  women  like  Elizabeth  Fry 
and  Sarah  Martin.  But  meanwhile  missionary 
enterprise  was  taking  wider  and  more  daring 
flight.  In  June  1793,  WilHam  Carey  and  his 
colleague  sailed  for  India.  So  opposed  to  the 
policy  of  the  East  India  Company  was  the  idea 
of  a  Christian  mission,  that  they  were  obliged  to 
embark  in  a  Danish  East  Indiaman,  and  to  settle 
in   Danish  territory.     Nearly  a   century  later,   in 


326  1688-1900 

April  1874,  David  Livingstone  was  buried  in 
Westminster  Abbey  : 

"  Open  the  Abbey  doors  and  bear  him  in 

To  sleep  with  king  and  statesman,  chief  and  sage, 
The  missionary  come  of  weaver  kin. 

But  great  by  work  that  brooks  no  lower  wage." 

The  contrast  marks  the  revulsion  of  pubhc  opinion, 
and  suggests  the  importance  of  a  movement  which 
is  among  the  marvels  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

For  Protestant  England,  the  history  of  missions 
to  the  heathen  begins  with  John  Eliot  (1604-90), 
the  son  of  a  Hertfordshire  yeoman,  an  early  settler 
in  New  England  for  conscience'  sake,  and  one  of 
the  three  authors  of  the  metrical  version  of  the 
Psalms,  which  was  known  as  the  Bay  Psalm  Book 
(1640).  Few  names  in  American  history  are  more 
truly  venerable  than  that  of  the  man  who  gave 
the  best  years  of  his  life  to  the  task  of  preaching 
the  Gospel  to  the  Red  Indians.  Rising  above  the 
special  faults  which  beset  the  religion  of  his  con- 
temporaries, he  was  neither  sour,  nor  gloomy,  nor 
fanatical — a  kindly-natured,  tender-hearted  man — 
who  always  stored  the  deep  pockets  of  his  horse- 
man's cloak  with  presents  for  the  papooses.  His 
metrical  version  of  the  Psalms  in  the  Indian  dialect 
of  Massachusetts  (1658)  was  the  first  part  of  the 
Bible  which  he  published,  and  in  the  singing  of 
the  Psalms  he  found  the  readiest  means  of  arrest- 
ing the  attention  of  his  hearers,  and  the  simplest 
expression  for  the  religious  feelings  of  the  infants 
of  humanity. 

Eliot's  communities  of  "  Praying  Indians  "  were 
dead  or  dying  before  his  successor  began  his  mission 
work  among  the  Indians  of  Delaware  and  Penn- 
sylvania. The  Journal  of  David  Brainerd  (1718-47), 
as  published  in  Jonathan  Edwards'  account  of  his 
life  (1765),  is  a  remarkable  piece  of  spiritual  auto- 
biography. In  words  which  are  largely  drawn  from 
the  Psalms,  it  traces  the  inner  life  of  the  thoughtful, 


DAVID  BRAINERD  327 

somewhat  melancholy  youth,  who,  growing  up  in 
his  father's  home  in  Connecticut,  or  working  on  his 
own  farm,  resolved  to  devote  his  whole  life,  first  as 
a  minister,  then  as  a  missionary  to  the  Indians  of 
Delaware  and  Pennsylvania.  Five  years  (1742-47) 
of  toil,  anxiety,  exposure,  and  privation,  did  their 
work  on  a  sickly,  overwrought  frame.  At  the  age 
of  thirty,  Brainerd  died  of  consumption,  with  the 
words  of  Psalm  cii.,  sung  at  his  bedside  by  his 
friends,  still  ringing  in  his  ears. 

The  Journal  is  a  forgotten  book.  It  contains 
few  illuminating  thoughts  ;  it  breathes  a  theology 
which  to  many  men  is  repellent  ;  it  speaks  a  tech- 
nical language,  which,  from  less  saintly  and  simple 
lips,  might  nauseate  the  modern  reader.  Yet  the 
picture  it  presents  of  utter  self-surrender,  and  of 
concentrated  single-minded  effort,  is  singularly  im- 
pressive. As  a  record  of  religious  conflict  and  spirit- 
ual triumph,  it  may  be  contrasted  with  the  auto- 
biographies of  Bun^'an  or  Henry  Martyn.  It  shows 
little  of  the  dramatic  force  and  picture-making 
imagination  of  the  Grace  Abounding  ;  it  reveals 
scarcely  a  trace  of  the  natural  struggle  with  human 
ties  and  passions,  which  gives  to  Martyn 's  Journal 
so  pathetic,  and  even  romantic,  an  interest.  But, 
bare,  simple,  detached  though  it  is,  it  stands  apart 
from  similar  diaries  by  reason  of  its  absorption  in 
the  one  object  of  Brainerd's  life — the  strenuous, 
concentrated  effort  to  attain  nearness  to  God. 

The  early  stages  of  his  progress  are  common 
enough.  His  transient  self-satisfaction  in  doing 
duty  passed  away,  leaving  him  so  despondent  that, 
like  Bunyan,  he  "  begrutched  the  birds  and  beasts 
their  happiness,"  and  fancied  that  mountains  ob- 
structed his  hopes  of  mercy.  In  alternate  joy  and 
despair  he  continued,  till,  in  October  1 740,  his  temper 
and  habit  of  mind  underwent  a  change.  New  and 
higher  views  of  God  and  His  relation  to  man  seemed 
to  take  possession  of  his  soul.     There  was  no  special 


328  I688-I900 

call,  no  vision,  no  sudden  application  of  some  special 
passage  of  Scripture  to  his  own  particular  case. 
The  change  came  over  him  quietly,  without  violent 
personal  impressions.  But  it  was  absolute  and  per- 
manent. Henceforward  he  had  the  "  full  assurance 
of  hope,"  and  retained  it  "  unto  the  end."  But 
this  confidence  only  made  him  more  humble-minded, 
more  conscious  of  his  own  shortcomings.  Exter- 
nally, it  impelled  him  to  greater  activity  in  his 
missionary  work  ;  in  his  inner  life,  it  was  the 
nourishment  of  his  spiritual  growth,  the  source  of 
his  love  and  longing  for  purity  of  heart,  the  spring 
of  that  passion  for  holiness,  which  banished  all 
motives  of  fear  and  self-interest,  inspired  his  eager 
pursuit  on  earth  of  things  above,  and  created  his 
ideal  of  the  beauty  of  heaven. 

The  Journal  is  permeated  with  the  power  of  the 
Psalms.  So  much  have  they  become  part  of  his 
habitual  thoughts,  that  his  hopes,  fears,  and  as- 
pirations flow  naturally  into  language  which  recalls, 
even  when  it  does  not  reproduce,  the  actual  words. 
On  the  Psalms  are  based  the  "  five  distinguishing 
marks  of  a  true  Christian,"  which  Brainerd  gives 
from  what  he  had  himself  "  felt  and  experienced," 
and  the  fifth  may  be  taken  as  some  illustration  of 
his  character  and  life  : — 

"  The  laws  of  God  are  his  delight.  Psalm  cxix. 
verse  97  ('  Lord,  what  love  have  I  unto  thy  law  ; 
all  the  day  long  is  my  study  in  it ').  These  he 
observes,  not  out  of  constraint,  from  a  servile  fear 
of  hell ;  but  they  are  his  choice.  Psalm  cxix.,  verse  30 
('  I  have  chosen  the  way  of  truth  ;  and  thy  judg- 
ments have  I  laid  before  me  ').  The  strict  observ- 
ance of  them  is  not  his  bondage,  but  his  greatest 
liberty,  Psalm  cxix.,  verse  45  ('  And  I  will  walk  at 
liberty;  for  I  seek  thy  commandments  ')."  It  is 
on  the  same  foundation  that  in  the  Journal  Brainerd 
builds  his  own  assurance  of  hope.  "  That  holy 
confidence,"  he  writes,  "  can  only  arise  from  the 


EFFECT  OF  BRAINERD'S  JOURNAL      329 

testimony  of  a  good  conscience.  '  Then,'  says  the 
holy  Psalmist, '  shall  I  not  be  ashamed  when  I  have 
respect  unto  all  Thy  commandments  '  "  (Ps.  cxix., 
verse  6). 

Brainerd's  Journalis,  as  has  been  said,  a  forgotten 
book.  Yet  it  would  be  difficult  to  measure  the  mag- 
nitude of  the  results  which  it  indirectly  produced. 
It  fired  the  imagination  of  William  Carey  ;  it  stirred 
the  zeal  of  Henry  Martyn  ;  it  inspired  the  decision 
of  David  Livingstone  to  become  a  missionary.  In 
his  Diary  for  April  19,  1794,  Carey  makes  this 
entry  : — "  I  was  much  humbled  to-day  by  reading 
Brainerd.  O  what  a  disparity  betwixt  me  and  him  1 
He  always  constant,  I  as  inconstant  as  the  wind." 
Martyn,  who  repeatedly  refers  to  the  same  book, 
made  the  life  of  Brainerd  his  human  ideal.  Such 
references  as  the  following  might  be  multiplied  : — 
"  7th  November  1803. — I  thought  of  David  Brain- 
erd, and  ardently  desired  his  devotedness  to  God 
and  holy  breathings  of  soul."  "  23rd  September 
1803. — Read  David  Brainerd  to-day,  and  yesterday, 
and  find,  as  usual,  my  spirit  greatly  benefited  by  it. 
I  long  to  be  like  him  :  let  me  forget  the  world,  and 
be  swallowed  in  a  desire  to  glorify  God." 

From  Eliot  and  Brainerd,  William  Carey  (1761- 
1834)  traced  his  spiritual  lineage.  The  son  of  the 
parish  clerk  and  schoolmaster  of  Paulerspury,  in 
Northamptonshire,  he  became  a  Baptist  in  October 
1783.  Like  Hans  Sachs  the  poet  of  the  German 
Reformation,  or  George  Fox  the  Quaker,  or  Jacob 
Bohme  the  mystic,  he  was  by  trade  a  shoemaker. 
Working  at  his  business,  preaching,  teaching,  a 
married  man  and  a  father,  burdened  with  a  debt 
which  he  had  undertaken  for  his  wife's  first  husband, 
he  found  time  to  teach  himself  French,  Latin,  Greek, 
and  Hebrew.  In  his  daily  prayers  for  slaves  and 
heathen,  he  conceived  the  thought,  which  gradually 
shaped  itself  in  practical  form,  that  he  would  convert 
the  heathen  world  by  giving  them  the  Bible  in  their 


330  1688-1900 

native  tongues.  He  brought  the  subject  before  the 
assembled  ministers  of  his  persuasion,  only  to  be 
silenced  as  a  fanatic.  But  his  enthusiasm  and  per- 
tinacity were  at  length  rewarded.  At  Kettering,  in 
October  1 792, inthelow-roofedbackparlourof  Widow 
Wallis,  twelve  Baptist  ministers  formed  the  Par- 
ticular Baptist  Society  for  Propagating  the  Gospel 
among  the  Heathen.  A  few  weeks  later  it  was 
decided  that  Carey  should  be  sent  out  to  Bengal 
with  Thomas,  a  surgeon  who  had  already  worked  as 
a  missionary  in  India.  A  verse  from  the  Psalms, 
"  O  come,  let  us  worship  and  fall  down,  and  kneel 
before  the  Lord  our  Maker  "  (Ps.  xcv.,  verse  6), 
was  already  inscribed  by  Christian  Friedrich 
Schwartz  (1726-97)  over  the  portal  of  his  Mission 
Church  of  Bethlehem  at  Tranquebar.  It  was  a 
psalm  (xvi.,  verse  4),  "  They  that  run  after  another 
God  shall  have  great  trouble,"  which  supplied  the 
text  of  the  sermon  preached  at  the  service  held  to 
dedicate  Carey  to  his  work.  Thus  was  launched,  to 
quote  Sydney  Smith's  sneer,  by  a  few  "  consecrated 
cobblers,"  the  first  English  mission  to  the  heathen 
in  India. 

Carey  left  England,  determined  never  to  return. 
The  resolution  cost  him  something.  Among  the 
seeds  which,  years  later,  he  sowed  in  his  garden  at 
Serampore  were  those  of  the  daisy.  "  I  know  not," 
he  wrote,  "  that  I  ever  enjoyed  since  leaving  Europe, 
a  simple  pleasure  so  exquisite  as  the  sight  which  this 
English  daisy  afforded  me  ;  not  having  seen  one  for 
thirty  years,  and  never  expecting  to  see  one  again." 
During  his  long,  laborious  career,  thirty-four  trans- 
lations of  the  Bible  were  made  or  edited  by  him. 
He  himself  completed  the  Bengali,  Hindi,  Maratti, 
and  Sanskrit  versions.  His  paper  factories  created 
a  new  industry.  Not  only  was  he  one  of  the  first  of 
Oriental  scholars,  but  he  was  a  scientific  botanist, 
an  enthusiastic  farmer,  an  ardent  student  of  natural 
history.     Yet,  with  him,  science  was  always  subor- 


WILLIAM  CAREY  331 

dinated  to  religion.  It  is  a  text  from  the  Psalms, 
"  All  thy  works  praise  thee,  O  Lord  "  (Ps.  cxlv., 
verse  10),  that  he  prefixed  to  his  edition  of  Rox- 
burgh's Flora  Indica  ( 1 820),  It  was  with  the  words 
of  a  psalm  in  his  mind  that  he  desired  to  end  his  life. 
In  December  1823,  he  lay,  as  he  thought,  dying. 
"  I  had  no  joys,"  he  writes  ;  "  nor  any  fear  of  death 
or  reluctance  to  die  ;  but  never  was  I  so  sensibly 
convinced  of  the  value  of  an  Atoning  Saviour  as  then . 
I  could  only  say, '  Hangs  my  helpless  soul  on  Thee,' 
and  adopt  the  language  of  the  first  and  second  verses 
of  the  5 1  St  Psalm,  which  I  desired  might  be  the  text 
of  my  funeral  sermon,  '  Have  mercy  upon  me,  O 
God,  after  thy  great  goodness  :  according  to  the 
multitude  of  thy  mercies  do  away  mine  offences. 
Wash  me  throughly  from  my  wickedness,  and 
cleanse  me  from  my  sin." 

Carey  survived  his  illness  for  nearly  eleven  years. 
He  lived  to  see  the  tone  of  Anglo-Indian  society 
transformed,  and  the  worst  cruelties  of  the  Hindoo 
religion  suppressed.  He  lived  also  to  see  two  of  his 
greatest  successors  among  Indian  missionaries. 
In  the  prime  of  his  manhood,  he  welcomed  Henry 
Martyn  to  India  ;  at  the  close  of  his  own  career  he 
blessed  Alexander  Duff,  tottering  with  outstretched 
hands  to  meet  the  ruddy  Highlander — "  a  little 
yellow  old  man  in  a  white  jacket." 

Both  Eliot  and  Carey  had  left  the  Anglican 
Church  before  they  began  their  missionary  labours  ; 
the  work  of  Bunyan,  Baxter,  Howard,  and  Wesley 
was  done  outside  her  organisation.  But  Henry 
Martyn  (i  781-18 12)  lived,  laboured,  and  died  a 
faithful  member  of  her  communion.  It  is  this  con- 
trast which  marks  the  special  importance  of  Martyn 's 
life  and  death,  as  the  first  Anglican  missionary  to 
the  heathen,  the  precursor  of  a  long  line  of  heroes, 
the  spiritual  ancestor  of  men  of  the  type  of  Bishop 
Patteson  and  Bishop  Hannington. 

Senior  wrangler  at  Cambridge  in  1801,  a  brilliant 


332  1688-1900 

classic  as  well  as  a  mathematician,  a  Fellow  of 
St.  John's  College  (1802),  Martyn  was  ordained  in 
October  1803.  He  had  already  resolved  to  devote 
his  life  and  abilities  to  missionary  work.  To  this 
resolution  he  was  drawn,  partly  by  the  example  of 
Carey,  partly,  as  has  been  shown,  by  the  career  of 
David  Brainerd.  Appointed  at  the  close  of  1804 
to  an  East  Indian  Company's  chaplaincy,  he  sailed 
for  Calcutta  in  July  1805.  The  sacrifice  was  costly. 
On  the  one  side,  were  the  consciousness  of  talents, 
achieved  success,  a  growing  reputation,  congenial 
pursuits,  material  comfort,  affection  for  his  home, 
kindred,  friends,  and,  above  all,  his  love  for  Lydia 
Grenfell.  On  the  other  side,  were  exile,  solitude, 
obscure  employment  among  ignorant  aliens,  possi- 
bility of  failure,  surrender  of  the  comforts  and 
refinements  of  a  scholarly,  literary  life,  separation 
from  kindred  and  acquaintances,  abandonment  of 
his  prospects  of  marriage  with  the  being  who  was 
dearest  to  him  on  earth.  It  is  this  human  struggle, 
chronicled  with  abundant  wealth  of  detail,  which 
gives  to  his  final  victory  its  pathos,  its  romance, 
and,  for  ordinary  men,  its  vital  interest.  The 
Diary  depicts,  with  all  the  fluctuations  of  success 
and  defeat,  the  hard-won  conquest  of  self  by  a 
creature  of  flesh  and  blood,  not  the  easy  triumph 
achieved  over  the  weak  passions  of  earth  by  some 
disembodied  spirit. 

In  his  Diary  for  July  29,  1804,  Martyn  speaks 
for  the  first  time  of  his  love  for  Lydia  Grenfell  : 
"  I  felt  too  plainly  that  I  loved  her  passionately. 
The  direct  opposition  of  this  to  my  devotedness 
to  God  in  the  missionary  way,  excited  no  small 
tumult  in  my  mind."  Or  again,  a  month  later 
(August  27)  :  "  Reading  in  the  afternoon  to  Lydia 
alone,  from  Dr.  Watts,  there  happened  to  be, 
among  other  things,  a  prayer  on  entire  preference 
of  God  to  the  creature.  Now,  thought  I,  here  am 
I  in  the  presence  of  God  and  my  idol.  ...  I  con- 


HENRY  MARTYN  333 

tinued  conversing  with  her,  generally  with  my 
heart  in  heaven,  but  every  now  and  then  resting  on 
her,  .  .  .  Parted  with  Lydia,  perhaps  for  ever  in 
this  life.  Walked  to  St.  Hilary,  determining,  in 
great  tumult  and  inward  pain,  to  be  the  servant  of 
God."  Martyn  tore  himself  away  from  the  living 
woman  to  perfect  his  union  with  his  exalted  ideal  of 
conduct.  On  the  last  day  of  the  same  year  (De- 
cember 31),  when  he  was  waiting  for  news  of  his 
definite  appointment  to  the  Indian  chaplaincy, 
he  makes  the  following  entry,  clothing  his  self- 
surrender  in  the  familiar  words  of  Psalm  xxxi., 
verse  6  :  "So  closes  the  easy  part  of  my  life  ;  en- 
riched by  every  earthly  comfort,  and  caressed  by 
friends,  I  may  scarcely  be  said  to  have  experienced 
trouble  ;  but  now,  farewell  ease,  if  I  might  presume 
to  conjecture.  '  O  Lord,  into  Thy  hands  I  commit 
my  spirit  !  Thou  hast  redeemed  me,  Thou  God  of 
truth  !  '  may  I  be  saved  by  Thy  grace,  and  be 
sanctified  to  do  Thy  will,  and  to  all  eternity ; 
through  Jesus  Christ." 

The  struggle  was  not  over.  It  was  renewed  again 
and  again.  In  a  sense  it  ceased  only  with  his  life. 
Few  passages  in  the  Journal  are  more  pathetic  than 
those  which  record  Martyn 's  feelings  during  the 
detention  of  his  ship  at  Falmouth  and  at  Mounts 
Bay.  At  Miss  Grenfell's  house  at  Marazion,  on 
August  10,  1805,  came  the  final  parting.  On 
board  ship,  throughout  his  labours  among  English 
soldiers  and  natives  at  Dinapore  and  Cawnpore,  in 
the  midst  of  his  toil  in  translating  the  New  Testa- 
ment into  Hindustani  and  Persian,  in  his  journey 
through  Persia,  in  his  religious  disputes  at  Shiraz, 
he  never  swerved  from  his  purpose,  never  relaxed 
his  efforts  to  conquer  himself — and  never  forgot  his 
love. 

On  the  eve  of  his  departure  from  Cawnpore,  when 
the  fatal  signs  of  consumption  had  declared  them- 
selves and  a  sea  voyage  seemed  the  only  chance  of 


334  1688-1900 

life,  he  makes  this  entry:  "September  23,  181 1. 
— Was  walking  with  Lydia  ;  both  much  affected  ; 
and  speaking  on  things  dearest  to  us  both.  I 
awoke,  and  behold  it  was  a  dream  !  My  mind  re- 
mained very  solemn  and  pensive  ;  I  shed  tears. 
The  clock  struck  three,  and  the  moon  was  riding 
near  her  highest  noon  ;  all  was  silence  and  solem- 
nity, and  I  thought  with  pain  of  the  sixteen  thousand 
miles  between  us.  But  good  is  the  will  of  the 
Lord  !  even  if  I  see  her  no  more."  Side  by  side 
with  this  entry,  there  are  scattered  throughout  the 
pages  of  the  Journal  almost  innumerable  references 
to  the  Psalms,  and  illustrations  of  their  power  to 
soothe  and  encourage.  In  the  stress  of  his  struggle 
in  1804  he  found  that,  by  learning  portions  of  the 
Psalms  by  heart,  he  quickened  his  devotional 
feelings,  and  in  this  way  committed  to  memory 
Psalm  cxix.  It  was  a  psalm  (x.)  that  he  was 
reading  to  Lydia  Grenfell  when  he  was  hastily 
summoned  to  rejoin  his  ship,  and  they  parted  for 
ever  on  earth.  During  his  long  and  tedious  voyage, 
surrounded  by  uncongenial  companions,  it  w^as  to 
the  Psalms  that  he  turned  for  comfort.  Day  after 
day  the  entries  in  his  Journal  of  the  daily  events  of 
his  life  began  with  a  verse  from  the  Psalms,  followed 
by  a  short  comment.  From  the  Psalms  he  drew 
encouragement  in  his  missionary  enterprise.  Thus 
(December  10,  1 805)  he  quotes  Psalm  xxii.,  verse  27  : 
"All  the  ends  of  the  world  shall  remember  themselves, 
and  be  turned  unto  the  Lord  "  ;  and  thus  continues, 
' '  Sooner  or  later ,  they  shall  remember  what  is  preached 
to  them,  and  though  missionaries  may  not  live  to  see 
the  fruits  of  their  labours,  yet  the  memory  of  their 
words  shall  remain,  and  in  due  time  shall  be  the 
means  of  turning  them  unto  the  Lord."  In  failing 
health  and  sleepless  nights,  assailed  by  temptation 
yet  straining  after  purity  of  heart,  his  "  hope  and 
trust  "  is  in  the  words,  "  Purge  me  with  hj'^ssop,  and 
I  shall  be  clean  ;    thou  shalt  wash  me,  and  I  shall 


LYDIA  GRENFELL  335 

be  whiter  than  snow  "  (Ps.  H.,  verse  7),  At  Shiraz, 
in  the  midst  of  daily  disputes  with  Mahometan 
doctors,  and  the  laborious  revision  of  his  Persian 
translation  of  the  New  Testament,  he  found  "  a 
sweet  employment  "  in  translating  the  Psalms  into 
Persian.  The  work  "  caused  six  weary  moons,  that 
waxed  and  waned  since  its  commencement  to  pass 
unnoticed."  It  was  the  Psalms  that  soothed  the 
fatigue  of  his  headlong  ride  from  Tabriz  to  Tokat 
on  his  homeward  journey  :  "  September  4,  181 2. — 
I  beguiled  the  hours  of  the  night  by  thinking  of  the 
14th  Psalm."  "  September  10. — All  day  at  the 
village,  writing  down  notes  on  the  15th  and  i6th 
Psalms." 

The  closing  weeks  of  his  life  bring  into  touching 
juxtaposition  his  earthly  and  his  heavenly  love. 
He  had  resolved  to  abandon  his  scheme  of  trans- 
lating the  Bible  into  Arabic,  and  to  return  home 
from  Tabriz  by  Constantinople.  In  one  of  his  last 
letters,  written  three  months  before  his  death,  he 
tells  Miss  Grenfell  of  his  plan.  "  Perhaps,"  he 
continues,  "  you  may  be  gratified  by  the  intelli- 
gence ;  but  oh,  m}^  dear  Lydia,  I  must  faithfully 
tell  you  that  the  probability  of  my  reaching  England 
alive  is  but  small."  The  last  entry  in  the  Journal 
(October  6)  begins  with  words  which  sound  like 
reminiscences  of  the  Psalmist,  who  remembered  the 
past,  and  meditated  on  the  works  of  God.'  "  I  sat 
m  the  orchard,  and  thought  with  sweet  comfort 
and  peace  of  my  God  ;  in  solitude  my  company,  my 
friend,  and  comforter."  Ten  days  later,  October  16, 
1 81 2,  alone  among  strangers,  Henry  Martyn  passed 
to  his  rest. 

His  epitaph  was  written  by  Macaulay  : — 

"  Here  Martyn  lies.     In  Manhood's  early  bloom 
The  Christian  Hero  finds  a  Pagan  tomb. 
Religion,  sorrowing  o'er  her  favourite  son, 
Points  to  the  glorious  trophies  that  he  won, 
Eternal  trophies  !    not  with  carnage  red, 
Not  stained  with  tears  by  hapless  Captives  shed, 


336  1688-1900 

But  trophies  of  the  Cross  !    for  that  dear  name, 
Through  every  form  of  danger,  death,  and  shame. 
Onward  he  journeyed  to  a  happier  shore. 
Where  danger,  death,  and  shame  assault  no  more." 

But  in  missionary  enterprises  there  has  never 
been  any  lack  of  true  spiritual  heroes  to  fill  the 
gaps  caused  by  death.  Man  after  man  has  come 
forward,  obeying  what,  in  his  simple  sincerity,  he 
believes  to  be  a  call.  In  doing  that  work  their 
own  characters  have  ripened  in  beauty  and  nobility. 
Many  have  been  inspired  by  the  largest  views  of 
their  country's  opportunities  and  responsibilities  ; 
but  every  genuine  missionary  has  done  his  best, 
without  self-seeking,  in  some  community,  however 
small,  and  from  each  a  handful  of  human  beings, 
at  the  least,  have  learned  the  highest  and  purest 
impulses  of  their  lives. 

High  in  the  roll  of  missionaries  stands  the  name 
of  Alexander  Duff,  the  eloquent  speaker,  the 
educational  statesman,  and  the  first  missionary 
sent  out  to  India  by  the  Presbyterian  Church  of 
Scotland.  An  incident  on  his  voyage  confirmed, 
if  it  did  not  shape,  his  career.  On  October  14, 
1829,  he  and  his  wife  sailed  from  Ryde,  on  board 
the  Lady  Holland.  Four  months  later,  in  rough, 
boisterous  weather,  the  ship  approached  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope,  and  made  for  Table  Ba3\  At 
midnight,  February  13,  1830,  she  ran  aground. 
Her  back  broke  ;  her  masts  were  cut  away  ;  waves 
dashed  over  the  wreck  :  the  position  seemed 
desperate.  It  was  not  even  known  whether  the 
ship  had  struck  on  a  reef,  the  mainland,  or  an 
island.  All  around  were  boiling  surf  and  foam. 
With  great  difficulty  one  of  the  boats  was 
launched,  manned,  and  dispatched  to  find  a 
landing-place.  Three  hours  passed.  Hope  was 
almost  gone,  when  the  boat  returned,  reporting  a 
small  sandy  bay.  At  this  haven,  which  proved 
to    be    on     Dessen     Island,    the    passengers    and 


ALEXANDER  DUFF  337 

crewwere  safely  landed,  but  all  that  they  possessed 
was  lost. 

In  the  search  for  food  and  fuel,  a  sailor  found 
two  books  cast  by  the  waves  on  the  shore.  One 
was  a  Bible,  the  other  a  Scottish  Psalm  Book. 
In  both.  Duff's  name  was  written.  To  the  ship- 
wTecked  party  the  books  seemed  a  message  from 
God.  Led  by  Duff,  they  knelt  down  on  the  sand 
while  ne  read  them  Psalm  cvii.,  "  Whoso  is  wise 
will  ponder  these  things,"  etc.  On  Duff  himself 
the  effect  was  lasting.  All  his  library  was  lost. 
With  it  had  gone  all  his  notes  and  memoranda, 
everything  that  reminded  him  of  his  student  life. 
Only  the  Bible  and  Psalms  were  preserved.  Hence- 
forth, as  he  read  the  message,  human  learning 
was  to  be  only  a  means  and  not  an  end.  In  this 
spirit  he  founded  his  College,  to  teach  in  the  English 
language  everything  that  was  educationally  useful, 
and  to  hallow  secular  teaching  with  the  study  of 
the  Christian  faith  and  doctrines.  Every  morning 
he  and  his  household  began  the  day  by  singing 
together  one  of  the  Psalms  in  Rous's  version.  On 
his  journeys,  the  Psalms  were  ever  in  his  mind. 
Travelling  in  1 849  from  Simla  to  Kotghur,  his  road 
lay  by  a  narrow  bridle-path,  cut  out  of  the  face  of 
a  precipitous  ridge  of  rock.  As  he  rode,  he  watched 
a  shepherd,  followed  by  his  sheep,  making  his  way 
along  the  mountain-side.  The  man  carried  a  long 
rod,  at  one  end  of  which  was  a  crook,  at  the  other 
a  thick  band  of  iron.  If  the  shepherd  saw  a  sheep 
creeping  too  far  up  the  mountain,  or  feeding  too 
near  the  edge  of  the  precipice,  he  went  back,  caught 
one  of  the  hind  legs  of  the  animal  in  his  crook,  and 
gently  pulled  it  back  to  the  flock.  The  other  end 
was  used  to  beat  off  the  dangerous  beasts  that 
prowled  round  the  places  where  the  sheep  lay. 
"  This  brought  to  the  traveller's  remembrance  the 
expression  of  David,  the  shepherd,  in  the  23rd 
Psalm  (verse  4),  *  Thy  rod   and  thy  staff   comfort 


338  1688-1900 

me  ' — the  staff  clearly  meaning  God's  watchful 
guiding  and  directing  providence,  and  the  rod  His 
omnipotence  in  defending  His  own  from  foes.  It  is 
no  tautology." 

Carey  and  Duff  passed  away  in  ripe  old  age, 
having  lived  to  see  some  of  the  fruits  of  their 
labours.  Henry  Martyn,  d^ang  alone  in  a  foreign 
land,  had  completed  two  of  the  great  tasks  on 
which  he  had  set  his  mind.  Very  different  was 
the  fate  of  Allen  Gardiner  (^  1 794- 1 8  5 1 ) .  The  leader 
of  a  forlorn  hope  of  missionary  enterprise  among 
the  Tierra  del  Fuegans,  he,  with  his  six  companions, 
was  starved  to  death,  never  wavering  in  the  patient 
courage  or  losing  the  sure  trust  in  God  which  he 
drew  from  the  book  of  Psalms. 

After  sixteen  years'  service  in  the  Royal  Navy, 
Commander  Gardiner  found  himself,  in  1826, 
without  employment.  He  was  free  to  devote  his 
life  to  missionary  work.  For  years  he  laboured, 
without  any  permanent  success,  among  the  Zulus 
in  South  Africa  and  the  Indians  in  South  America. 
On  September  7,  1850,  he  sailed  with  six  com- 
panions for  Tierra  del  Fuego,  where  he  hoped  to 
establish  a  mission.  In  December  the  party  was 
landed  on  Picton  Island,  furnished  with  provisions 
for  six  months.  The  natives  were  hostile  and 
thievish  ;  the  climate  was  rigorous,  the  country 
barren  and  wind  swept.  They  had  only  a  flask 
and  a  half  of  powder  between  them  ;  the  rest  had 
been  forgotten  :  their  nets  were  broken  ;  their 
food  was  exhausted,  and  no  fresh  supplies  reached 
them  from  the  Falkland  Islands.  One  by  one  the 
party  sickened  and  died,  the  last  survivor  being 
Gardiner.     In  his  Diary  their  story  is  recorded. 

Six  months  had  passed.  In  the  midst  of  snow, 
and  ice,  and  storm,  the  little  party  prayed  for  the 
coming  of  the  expected  succour.  On  June  4,  1851, 
Gardiner  writes  :  "  Wait  on  the  Lord,  be  of  good 
courage,    and    he    shall    strengthen    thine    heart. 


ALLEN  GARDINER  339 

Wait,  I  say,  on  the  Lord  "  (Ps.  xxvii.,  verse  14). 
A  lucky  shot,  fired  with  ahiiost  their  last  grain  of 
powder,  killed  five  ducks.  It  is  in  the  words  of  the 
Psalms,  that  the  Diary  records  the  gratitude  of 
the  hungry  men  :  "  June  16. — He  will  regard  the 
prayer  of  the  destitute,  and  not  despise  their 
prayer  "  (Ps.  cii.,  verse  17).  "  They  that  seek  the 
Lord  shall  not  want  any  good  thing  "  (Ps.  xxxiv., 
verse  10).  Three  of  the  band  were  m  a  dying 
condition  ;  and  Gardiner  himself  had  realised  the 
prospect  of  starvation .  Still  he  retained  his  confident 
trust  :  "Be  merciful  unto  me,  O  God,  be  merciful 
unto  me,  for  my  soul  trusteth  in  Thee  :  yea,  in  the 
shadow  of  Thy  wings  will  I  make  my  refuge,  until 
these  calamities  are  overpast  "  (Ps.  Ivii.,  verse  i], 
is  his  entry  for  June  21.  A  week  later  was  his 
birthday.  "  I  know,"  he  writes  in  his  Diary  for 
June  28,  "  that  it  is  written,  '  They  who  seek  the 
Lord  shall  want  no  manner  of  thing  that  is  good  ' 
(Ps.  xxxiv.,  verse  10).  And  again,  *  Cast  Thy 
burden  upon  the  Lord,  and  He  shall  sustain  thee  ' 
(Ps.  Iv.,  verse  22).  Whatever  the  Lord  may  in  His 
providence  see  fit  to  take  away,  it  is  that  which  He 
Himself  has  bestowed.  .  .  .  Still  I  pray  that,  if 
it  be  consistent  with  Thy  righteous  will,  O  my 
heavenly  Father,  Thou  wouldest  look  down  with 
compassion  upon  me  and  upon  my  companions, 
who  are  straitened  for  lack  of  food,  and  vouchsafe 
to  provide  that  which  is  needful  .  .  .  but,  if  other- 
wise, Thy  will  be  done."  One  of  the  party  had 
now  died,  and  all  were  very  weak.  Still  their 
sufferings  were  endured  without  a  murmur.  On 
July  5,  a  hand  was  painted  upon  a  rock  leading  to 
the  Pioneer  Cavern,  in  which  Gardiner  lived,  and, 
underneath  it,  "  Ps.  Ixii.  5-8."  The  words  re- 
ferred to  are  :  "  Nevertheless,  my  soul,  wait  thou 
still  upon  God  ;  for  my  hope  is  in  him.  He  truly 
is  my  strength  and  my  salvation  ;  he  is  my  defence, 
so  that  I  shall  not  fall.     In  God  is  my  health  and 

23 


340  I 688-1900 

my  glory  ;  the  rock  of  my  might,  and  in  God  is  my 
trust.  O  put  your  trust  in  him  alway,  3'e  people  ; 
pour  out  your  hearts  before  him,  for  God  is  our 
hope."  At  the  end  of  August,  two  more  of  the 
band  had  died,  and  for  the  rest  the  end  was  rapidly 
approaching.  The  last  entry  in  the  Diary  is  dated 
September  5  :  "  Great  and  marvellous  are  the 
loving-kindnesses  of  my  gracious  God  unto  me. 
He  has  preserved  me  hitherto,  and  for  four  days, 
although  without  bodily  food,  without  any  feeling 
of  hunger  or  thirst."  When  a  relief  ship  arrived, 
October  21,  1851,  the  bodies  of  Gardiner  and  three 
of  his  companions  were  found  lying  unburied  on 
the  shore. 

The  death  of  Gardiner  seemed  to  be  a  useless 
sacrifice  in  a  hopeless  cause.  No  results  were 
achieved  by  him  in  Tierra  del  Fuego.  The  career 
of  David  Livingstone  (1813-73)  was  in  one  respect 
a  striking  contrast.  It  was  crowded  with  triumphs. 
Nor  must  his  successful  labour  in  the  cause  of  geo- 
graphical science  allow  us  to  invert  the  order  of  the 
objects  to  which  his  life  was  devoted.  He  was, 
before  all  else,  a  Christian  missionary,  and,  as  part 
of  the  Gospel  message,  an  apostle  of  freedom  from 
the  horrors  of  slavery. 

Through  his  mother,  David  Livingstone  seems  to 
have  added  to  the  daring  of  his  Highland  ancestors 
the  tenacity  of  the  Lowland  Covenanter.  As  a  boy 
of  nine,  he  won  a  New  Testament  from  his  Sunday- 
school  teacher  for  repeating  by  heart  Psalm  cxix. 
A  year  later  he  became  a  "  piecer  "  in  the  cotton 
factory  of  Blantyre,  and  grew  up,  inured  to  toil, 
insatiable  for  books,  a  keen  student  of  natural  his- 
tory, and  an  occasional  poacher.  It  was  not  till 
he  was  twenty  that  his  mmd  took  a  decidedly  re- 
ligious turn.  But,  from  that  time  onward,  his  heart, 
fired  by  the  examples  of  Brainerd  and  of  Carey,  was 
set  on  a  missionary  life.  He  offered  his  services  to 
the  London  Missionary  Society,  was  accepted,  and 


DAVID  LIVINGSTONE  341 

(November  20,  1840)  ordained.  A  fortnight  later, 
he  sailed  for  the  Cape. 

With  a  psalm  Livingstone  bade  farewell  to  his 
family  and  home.  "  I  remember  my  father  and 
him,"  writes  his  sister,  "  talking  over  the  prospects 
of  Christian  missions.  They  agreed  that  the  time 
would  come  when  rich  men  and  great  men  would 
think  it  an  honour  to  support  whole  stations  of 
missionaries,  instead  of  spending  their  money  on 
hounds  and  horses.  On  the  morning  of  Nov- 
ember 17  (1840),  we  got  up  at  five  o'clock.  My 
mother  made  coffee.  David  read  the  121st  and 
135th  Psalms,  and  prayed.  My  father  and  he 
walked  to  Glasgow  to  catch  the  Liverpool  steamer." 
He  never  saw  his  father  again.  His  mother  had 
told  him  that  she  "  would  have  liked  one  of  her 
laddies  to  lay  her  head  in  the  grave."  "  It  so  hap- 
pened," writes  David  Livingstone  in  1865,  "  that  I 
was  there  to  pay  the  last  tribute  to  a  dear  good 
mother." 

In  Africa,  for  thirty  years,  Livingstone  toiled  un- 
ceasingly to  explore  the  continent,  abolish  the  slave 
trade,  and  evangelise  the  native  races.  He  early 
learned  the  lesson  that  the  spiritual  cannot  be 
absolutely  divorced  from  the  secular.  Some  may 
think  that  the  explorer  predominated  over  the 
missionary.  Yet,  throughout  his  journeys,  he 
maintained,  in  all  its  strength  and  purity,  his  own 
inner  life  of  fellowship  with  God.  It  was  with  a 
psalm  that  he  encouraged  himself  to  face  the  un- 
known future  which  each  day  might  bring.  Men- 
aced with  death  by  savages,  sickened  by  the  atro- 
cities of  the  slave  trade,  often  prostrated  by  fever 
or  gnawed  by  hunger,  tormented  by  poisonous  in- 
sects, sometimes  moving  in  such  bodily  pain  that  he 
felt  as  if  he  were  dying  on  his  feet,  he  found  his  daily 
strength  in  the  words,  "  Commit  thy  way  unto  the 
Lord,  and  put  thy  trust  in  him  ;  and  he  shall  bring 
it  to  pass  "  (Ps.  xxxvii.,  verse  5).     This  was  the  text 


342  1 688-1900 

which  sustained  him,  as  he  says  himself,  at  every 
tm"n  of  his  "  course  in  hfe  in  this  country,  and  even 
in  England." 

Livingstone's  last  expedition  started  from  Zanzi- 
bar in  1866.  He  disappeared  into  the  heart  of 
Central  Africa.  Only  vague  rumours  of  his  life  or 
death  reached  the  civilised  world .  In  October  1 87 1 , 
he  had  arrived  at  Ujiji  a  living  skeleton  ;  all  the 
stores  which  he  expected  had  disappeared  ;  he  was 
in  a  desperate  plight  ;  only  three  of  his  men  re- 
mained faithful  ;  the  rest  had  deserted  him  ;  star- 
vation stared  him  in  the  face.  It  was  then  that  he 
was  found  by  Stanley.  At  Unyanyembe  Living- 
stone halted,  while  Stanley  returned  to  the  coast  to 
send  him  men  and  stores.  From  March  to  August 
1872,  he  waited.  At  last  the  men  came,  and  it  is 
in  the  words  of  a  psalm  that  he  records  his  joy.  The 
entry  in  his  Diary  for  August  9,  1872,  is  as  follows  : 
"  I  do  most  devoutly  thank  the  Lord  for  His  good- 
ness in  bringing  my  men  near  to  this.  Three  came 
to-day,  and  how  thankful  I  am  I  cannot  express.  It 
is  well — the  men  who  were  with  Mr,  Stanley  came 
again  to  me.  '  Bless  the  Lord,  O  my  soul,  and  all 
that  is  within  me  bless  his  holy  Name.  Amen  '  " 
(Ps.  ciii.,  verse  i). 

With  "  failing  strength,  but  never-failing  will,"  he 
pressed  on.  Weak,  bloodless,  and  suffering  ex- 
cruciating pain,  he  was,  in  fact,  a  dying  man.  On 
the  morning  of  May  i,  1873,  he  was  found  dead, 
on  his  knees  in  the  hut  at  Itala.  "  Kneeling  at  the 
bedside,  with  his  head  buried  in  his  hands  upon  the 
pillow,  his  last  words  on  earth  were  spoken,  not  to 
man  but  to  God." 

In  the  train  of  Livingstone  followed  James 
Hannington,  the  first  Bishop  of  Equatorial  Africa. 
In  July  1885,  he  had  set  out  from  Frere  Town  to 
make  his  way  through  the  Masai  country  to  Lake 
Victoria  Nyanza.  Every  morning,  throughout  his 
toilsome,  dangerous  journey,  he  greeted  the  sunrise 


BISHOP  HANNINGTON  343 

by  reading  or  repeating  his  "  Travelling  Psalm,"  "  I 
will  lift  up  mine  eyes  unto  the  hills,"  etc.  (Ps.  cxxi.). 
On  October  12,  he  left  the  rest  of  his  party,  and, 
a  week  later,  reached  the  shores  of  the  lake.  He 
was,  in  fact,  marching  to  almost  certain  death. 
King  Mwanga,  fearing  annexation  of  his  dominions, 
and  believing  the  missionaries  to  be  the  agents  of 
the  design,  had  begun  a  bitter  persecution  of  the 
Christians.  At  a  village  on  the  shores  of  the  lake, 
Hannington  was  seized,  and  confined  in  a  miserable 
prison,  surrounded  by  noisy,  drunken  guards. 
Consumed  with  fever,  and  at  times  delirious  from 
pain,  devoured  by  vermin,  menaced  every  moment 
by  the  prospect  of  death,  he  found  strength  in  the 
Psalms.  On  Wednesday,  October  28,  he  notes  in 
his  Diar}^  :  "  I  am  quite  broken  down  and  brought 
low.  Comforted  by  Psalm  xxvii.  Word  came  that 
Mwanga  had  sent  three  soldiers,  but  what  news  they 
bring,  they  will  not  yet  let  me  know.  Much  com- 
forted by  Psalm  xxviii."  "  October  29,  Thursday 
(eighth  day  in  prison). — I  can  hear  no  news,  but 
was  held  up  by  Psalm  xxx.,  which  came  with  great 
power.  A  hyena  howled  near  me  last  night,  smell- 
ing a  sick  man,  but  I  hope  it  is  not  to  have  me  yet." 
This  is  his  last  entr}^  That  day,  at  the  age  of  thirty- 
seven,  he  was  killed. 

On  the  influence  of  the  Psalms  in  the  everyday 
lives  of  ordinary  men  and  women,  it  is  unnecessary 
to  dwell.  The  career  of  Colonel  Gardiner  (1688- 
1745)  proves,  that  even  the  chilling  atmosphere  of 
the  early  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  did  not 
impair  their  power  over  the  human  heart.  Except 
for  his  death  at  Prestonpans,  described  in  Waverley, 
there  is  little  to  distinguish  Gardiner  as  in  any 
way  remarkable.  "  A  very  weak,  honest,  and 
brave  man,"  is  the  testimony  of  Alexander  Carlyle. 
Philip  Doddridge  relates  that,  in  July  1719,  James 
Gardiner,  then  a  notorious  rake,  was  "  converted  " 
by  a  vision  which  appeared  to  him  as  he  sat  in  his 


344  1688-1900 

room  at  Paris,  waiting  the  hour  for  an  assignation 
with  his  mistress,  and  idly  turning  the  pages  of 
The  Christian  Soldier  to  find  amusement.  Alex- 
ander Carlyle  tells  a  less  supernatural  story.  But, 
whatever  were  the  true  circumstances,  it  is  not 
disputed  that,  from  that  time  forward,  Gardiner's 
character  was  changed,  and  that  he  strove  to  reform, 
not  only  his  own  life,  but  the  lives  of  those  about 
him  and  under  his  command.  A  psalm  furnished 
the  text  (Ps.  cxix.,  verse  158)  from  which  Doddridge 
preached  the  sermon  that  found  for  him  a  way  to 
the  heart  of  Gardiner.  In  his  biography  of  his 
friend,  Doddridge  shows  how  deep  was  the  hold 
which  the  Psalms  possessed  on  the  colonel's  life. 
That  he  might  at  all  times  command  their  comfort 
and  encouragement,  he  learnt  several  of  the  Psalms 
by  heart,  and,  as  he  rode,  alone  and  in  unfrequented 
places,  used  to  repeat  them  to  himself  or  sing  them 
aloud.  Throughout  his  letters  they  are  repeatedly 
quoted.  In  1743  he  had  returned  from  Flanders, 
ill,  and  impressed  with  the  conviction  of  a  speedy 
death.  His  intimate  friends,  and  those  immediately 
about  him,  remembered  how  his  mind  dwelt  with 
special  delight  on  the  words,  "  My  soul,  wait  thou 
still  upon  God  "  (Ps.  Ixii.,  verse  5),  or  upon  Psalm 
cxlv.,  and  the  version  of  it  by  Isaac  Watts.  The 
outbreak  of  the  Rebellion  of  1745  found  him 
sufficiently  recovered  to  command  his  regiment  of 
horse  at  the  battle  of  Prestonpans,  fought  on  the 
great  open  field  into  which  the  arable  land  was 
thrown.  Mortally  wounded,  he  was  carried  past 
the  graveyard  of  Tranent  to  the  minister's  house, 
where  he  died.  Five-and-twenty  years  before,  he 
had  dreamed  a  dream  in  which  the  place  was 
depicted.  "  He  imagined  that  he  saw  his  Blessed 
Redeemer  on  Earth,  and  that  he  was  following  Him 
through  a  large  Field,  following  Him  whom  his  Soul 
loved,  but  much  troubled  because  he  thought  his 
Blessed  Lord  did  not  speak  to  him  ;  till  he  came  up 


NATURAL  EXPRESSION  OF  MOODS     345 

to  the  Gate  of  Burying  Place,  when  turning  about 
He  smiled  upon  him,  in  such  a  Manner  as  filled  his 
soul  with  the  most  ravishing  Joy  ;  and  on  After- 
Reflection  animated  his  Faith,  in  believing  that 
whatever  Storms  and  Darkness  he  might  meet  with 
in  the  Way,  at  the  Hour  of  Death  his  glorious  Re- 
deemer would  lift  upon  him  the  Light  of  His  Life- 
giving  Countenance  "  (Ps.  iv.,  verse  7). 

So  habitual  a  use  as  Colonel  Gardiner  made  of  the 
Psalms  is  uncommon.  It  belonged,  perhaps,  to  the 
religious  views  and  temperament  of  a  man  who 
was  a  "  noted  enthusiast."  Yet  in  the  lives  of  most 
men  and  women  there  are  moods  which  only  find 
their  natural  expression  in  the  familiar  language  of 
the  Psalms.  When  Thomas  Carlyle  sets  down  his 
half-humorous,  half-bitter  contempt  for  the  triviali- 
ties of  society,  he  quotes  the  same  verse  with  which 
the  "  judicious  "  Hooker  protested  against  his 
wife's  shrewish  tongue  (Ps.  cxx.,  verse  5).  Return- 
ing in  1835  from  a  London  dinner  party,  where  he 
had  met  Sydney  Smith — "  a  mass  of  fat  and  mus- 
cularity .  .  .  with  shrewdness  and  fun,  not  humour 
or  even  wit,  seemingly  without  soul  altogether,"  he 
closes  the  note  with  the  words  :  "  The  rest  babble, 
babble.  Woe's  me  that  I  in  Meshech  am  !  To 
work."  Or  again,  in  a  higher  and  wholly  serious 
tone,  it  is  with  a  psalm  that  he  encourages  his 
brothers  to  struggle  on.  "  Courage,  my  brave 
brothers,  all  !  Let  us  be  found  faithful,  and  we 
shall  not  fail.  Surely  as  the  blue  dome  of  heaven 
encircles  us  all,  so  does  the  Providence  of  the  Lord 
of  heaven.  He  will  withhold  no  good  thing  from 
those  that  love  Him  (Ps.  Ixxxiv.,  verse  12).  This, 
as  it  is  the  ancient  Psalmist's  faith,  let  it  likewise  be 
ours.  It  is  the  Alpha  and  Omega,  I  reckon,  of  all 
possessions  that  can  belong  to  man."  Or,  yet  again, 
in  one  of  those  moods  of  despondency,  which  at  times 
sweep  over  all  of  us,  it  is  in  the  language  of  a  psalm 
that  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle  utters  her  cry  for  help. 


346  1688-1900 

On  March  24,  1856,  she  had  resolved,  in  spite  of 
weakness  and  ill-health,  neither  to  indulge  \n  vain 
retrospects  of  the  past,  nor  to  gaze  into  vague  dis- 
tances of  the  future,  but  to  find  the  duty  nearest  to 
hand,  and  do  it.  Two  days  later,  she  had  learnt 
how  much  she  was  the  creature  of  external  con- 
ditions. "  One  cold,  rasping,  savage  March  day," 
aided  by  the  too  tender  sympathy  of  a  friend,  brought 
back  all  her  troubles,  and  she  writes  (March  26, 
1856)  :  "  Have  mercy  upon  me,  O  Lord,  for  I  am 
weak  ;  O  Lord,  heal  me,  for  my  bones  are  vexed. 
My  soul  is  also  sore  vexed  ;  but  Thou,  O  Lord,  how 
long  ?  Return,  O  Lord,  deliver  my  soul  ;  O  save 
me  for  Thy  mercies'  sake  "  (Ps.  vi.,  verses  2-4). 

It  is  to  the  Psalms  that  some  of  the  great 
political  leaders  of  the  last  century  have  turned  in 
times  of  strain  and  stress.  Gladstone  has  recorded 
in  his  hnpregnable  Rock  of  Holy  Scripture  (ch.  iv.) 
that  John  Bright  had  told  him  "  that  he  would  be 
content  to  stake  upon  the  Book  of  Psalms,  as  it 
stands,  the  great  question  whether  there  is  or  is 
not  a  Divine  Revelation."  He  himself,  in  the 
Preface  to  his  Concordance  to  the  Psalter  ( 1 895),  goes 
still  further  :  "  There  are  many,"  he  says,  "  of  its 
single  verses  on  which,  taken  severally,  we  might  be 
content,  so  lofty  is  their  nature,  to  stake  the  whole 
argument  for  a  Divine  Revelation,"  Gladstone, 
together  with  Abraham  Lincoln  and  James  Garfield, 
may  be  quoted  as  examples  of  political  leaders  who 
have  used  the  Psalms  at  critical  moments  in  their 
careers . 

Few  men  have  ever  appealed  to  great  masses  of 
his  fellow-countrymen  with  such  magical  power  as 
Gladstone.  Never  since  the  seventeenth  century 
has  England  possessed  a  ruler  in  whom  religion 
more  largely  predominated  over  all  other  principles 
and  motives.  It  was  his  religion  w^hich  made  him 
not  only  a  political  but  a  moral  force.  In  his 
religion  alone  can  unity  be  traced  through  all  the 


WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE        347 

surprises  and  paradoxes  of  his  career.  Others  have 
more  deeply  influenced  the  course  of  political  ideas  ; 
but  no  one  did  more  than  Gladstone  to  implant  in 
the  bosom  of  English  politics  a  conscience  and  a 
heart.  He  has  himself  noted  (May  9,  1854)  how 
"  on  most  occasions  of  very  sharp  pressure  or  trial, 
some  word  of  Scripture  has  come  to  me  as  if  borne  on 
angels'  wings.  Many  could  I  recollect.  The  Psalms 
are  the  great  storehouse.  Perhaps  I  should  put 
some  down  now,  for  the  continuance  of  memory  is 
not  to  be  trusted,  i .  In  the  winter  of  1837,  Psalm 
128.  This  came  in  a  most  singular  manner,  but  it 
would  be  a  long  story  to  tell.  2.  In  the  Oxford  con- 
test of  1847  (which  was  very  harrowing)  the  verse 
'  O  Lord  God,  Thou  strength  of  my  health,  Thou 
hast  covered  my  head  in  the  day  of  battle  '  (Ps.  cxL, 
verse  7).  3.  In  the  Gorham  contest,  after  the 
judgment  ;  '  And  though  all  this  be  come  upon  us, 
yet  do  we  not  forget  Thee  ;  nor  behave  ourselves 
frowardly  in  Thy  covenant.  Our  heart  is  not 
turned  back  ;  neither  our  steps  gone  out  of  Thy 
way.  No,  not  when  Thou  hast  smitten  us  into  the 
place  of  dragons,  and  covered  us  with  the  shadow 
of  death  '  (Ps.  xliv.,  verses  19-20).  4.  On  Monday, 
April  17,  1853  (his  first  budget  speech),  it  was  :  '  O 
turn  Thee  then  unto  me,  and  have  mercy  upon  me  ; 
give  Thy  strength  unto  Thy  servant,  and  help  the 
son  of  Thine  handmaid  '  (Ps.  Ixxxvi.,  verse  16). 
Last  Sunday  (Crimean  War  budget)  it  was  not  from 
the  Psalms  of  the  day  ;  '  Thou  shalt  prepare  a  table 
before  me  against  them  that  trouble  me  ;  Thou 
hast  anointed  my  head  with  oil  and  my  cup  shall 
be  full  '  "  (Ps.  xxiii.,  verse  5). 

Venerating  ecclesiastical  authority,  steeped  in 
the  traditions  of  the  Church  of  the  fourth  century, 
imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages,  counting 
Augustine  and  Dante  as  two  of  his  "  apostles," 
Gladstone  was,  theologically,  poles  asunder  from 
Abraham  Lincoln,  who  belonged  to  no  church;  or 


348  1688-1900 

from  Garfield,  who  was  a  Campbellite  and  a  member 
of  the  Disciples'  Church.  Yet  the  three  men  were 
fundamentally  religious,  and  in  their  love  of  the 
Psalter  they  were  one.  In  March  1861,  Abraham 
Lincoln  delivered  his  first  Inaugural  Address  as 
President  of  the  United  States.  Through  it  runs 
the  stern  conviction  that  even  war  is  a  lesser  evil 
than  the  destruction  of  a  nation.  Yet  the  address, 
which  is  almost  Biblical  in  the  simplicity  and 
strength  of  its  language,  concludes  with  a  touch- 
ing appeal  to  the  better  judgment  of  the 
Confederate  States.  "  We  are  not  enemies,"  says 
Lincoln,  "  but  friends.  We  must  not  be  enemies. 
Though  passion  may  have  strained,  it  must  not  break 
our  bonds  of  affection.  The  mystic  chords  of 
memory,  stretching  from  every  battlefield  and 
patriot  grave  to  every  living  hearth  and  hearth- 
stone all  over  this  broad  land,  will  yet  swell  the 
chorus  of  the  Union  when  again  touched,  as  surely 
they  will  be,  by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature." 
The  war  was  drawing  to  its  close,  when,  in  March 
1865,  Lincoln  delivered  his  second  Inaugural 
Address.  It  dwells  on  the  tremendous  moral 
significance  of  a  struggle,  in  which  both  the  con- 
tending forces  "  read  the  same  Bible,  both  pray  to 
the  same  God  ;  and  each  invokes  His  aid  against 
the  other."  It  is  with  a  reference  to  Psalm  xix., 
verse  9,  that  he  concludes  :  "  Fondly  do  we 
hope — fervently  do  we  pray — that  this  mighty 
scourge  of  war  may  speedily  pass  away.  Yet, 
if  God  wills  that  it  continue  until  all  the  wealth 
piled  by  the  bondsman's  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  every 
drop  of  blood  drawn  with  the  lash  shall  be  paid 
by  another  drawn  with  the  sword,  as  was  said 
three  thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said, 
*  The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true,  and  righteous 
altogether.'  " 

Five  days  after  the   fall   of  Richmond  and  the 


JAMES  GARFIELD  349 

surrender  of  General  Lee,  Lincoln  was  assassinated 
at  Washington  by  Booth  (April  14,  1865).  When 
the  news  reached  New  York,  the  city  was  swept 
off  its  feet  by  a  wave  of  fierce  indignation.  Fifty 
thousand  men,  most  of  them  armed,  all  of  them 
passionately  eager  for  vengeance,  gathered  round 
Wall  Street  Exchange.  The  lives  of  all  known 
opponents  of  the  murdered  President  hung  upon 
a  thread.  Of  two  men  who  had  called  out  that 
Lincoln  ought  to  have  been  shot  long  before, 
one  was  killed,  the  other  mortally  wounded.  But 
the  attention  of  the  excited  crowd  was  suddenly 
caught  by  a  tall,  broad-shouldered  man,  who 
pushed  to  the  front,  waving  in  his  hand  a  flag.  The 
cry  was  raised — "  Another  telegram  from  Washing- 
ton." In  death-like  stillness,  the  throng  waited 
for  the  message.  Raising  his  right  hand  towards 
heaven,  with  slovv^,  clear  utterance,  the  speaker 
said  : — "  Fellow-citizens  :  Clouds  and  darkness 
are  round  about  Him !  His  pavilion  is  dark 
waters  and  thick  clouds  of  the  skies  !  Justice  and 
judgment  are  the  habitation  of  His  throne  !  Mercy 
and  truth  shall  go  before  His  face  !  Fellow-citizens  : 
God  reigns,  and  the  Government  at  Washington 
still  lives  !  "  The  man  was  James  Garfield,  after- 
wards (March  1881)  the  twentieth  President  of  the 
United  States,  and,  like  Lincoln,  destined  to  die 
by  the  hand  of  the  assassin.  The  effect  of  the 
words  was  instantaneous.  It  was  not  his  personal 
magnetism,  though  it  was  great,  nor  3^et  the  quick- 
witted readiness  for  an  emergency,  though  that 
quality  characterised  his  whole  career,  which  stilled 
the  raging  of  the  crowd.  It  was  the  happy  choice 
of  the  familiar  words  of  the  Psalms  (Ps.  xviii., 
verse  11,  and  Ps.  xcvii.,  verse  2),  which,  with  all 
the  force  of  old  associations,  diverted  the  mind 
of  every  individual  to  other  thoughts  than  those  of 
vengeance. 

Few  persons  of  mature  years  have  not,  at  some 


350  1688-1900 

time  of  their  existence,  proved  the  adequacy  of  the 
language  of  the  Psalms — an  adequacy  belonging 
to  nothing  else  in  literature — to  express,  or  elevate, 
or  soothe,  or  solemnise  their  emotions.  For  that 
side  of  the  subject,  the  everyday,  universal  experi- 
ences of  humanity  are  enough.  It  only  remains 
to  illustrate  the  eternal  influence  of  the  Psalms  at 
some  of  those  exciting  moments  of  secular  life 
when  modern  history  has  been  made. 

The  French  Revolution,  and  the  rise  and  fall  of 
the  Napoleonic  Dynasty,  may  be  taken  as  one 
example.  In  Brittany  and  La  Vendee  was  con- 
centrated all  that  remained  of  Royalist  and  religious 
enthusiasm.  There,  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  worship  returned  to  the  simplicity  of  its 
primitive  conditions.  There  crowds  of  armed 
peasants,  fired  by  the  ardour  of  a  child-like  faith, 
knelt  at  the  feet  of  their  proscribed  and  hunted 
priests,  who  stood,  under  the  sky  and  woods,  by 
the  bare  rocks  which  served  for  the  altars  of  God. 
There,  as  they  commemorated  friends  or  neighbours 
who  had  died  fighting  the  Blues,  or  as  the  solemn 
words  of  Psalm  cxxx.,  "  Out  of  the  deep  have  I 
called  unto  thee,  O  Lord,"  etc.,  were  repeated  in 
alternate  verses  by  priest  and  congregation,  the 
survivors  renewed  their  vows  to  fight  on  for  their 
king  and  their  faith.  Nor  was  the  struggle  so 
hopeless  as  it  seemed.  High  cla}''  banks,  topped  by 
beeches,  oaks,  and  chestnuts,  intersected  the  fields, 
and  fenced  each  side  of  the  narrow,  winding  roads. 
Among  these  natural  covers  undisciplined  peasants 
met  regular  troops  on  equal  terms. 

Elsewhere  in  France,  the  Republicans  had 
gained  an  eas}^  triumph.  During  the  Reign  of  Terror 
hundreds  of  men  and  women  died  on  the  scaffold, 
committing  their  spirits  into  the  hands  of  God, 
in  the  language  of  the  Psalms.  So  died  Madame 
de  Noailles,  on  July  22,  1794.  With  her  was 
executed   her  father-in-law,   the   Due   de   Noailles- 


THE  REIGN  OF  TERROR  351 

Mouchy,  Marshal  of  France,  who,  at  the  age  of 
eighty,  mounted  the  scaffold  for  his  God,  as,  at 
sixteen,  he  had  mounted  the  breach  for  his  king. 
With  her  perished  also  the  Marechale  de  Noailles- 
Mouchy,  who,  fifty-two  years  before,  was  married 
at  the  Palais  de  Luxembourg,  which  had  been  her 
birthplace,  and  was  afterwards  to  be  her  prison. 

The  touching  letters  of  Madame  de  Noailles 
addressed  to  M.  Grelet,  the  tutor  of  her  two  sons, 
and  the  guardian  of  her  infant  daughter,  reveal  the 
beauty  of  her  character  and  the  depth  and  purity 
of  her  faith .  ' '  Good-bye ,  Alexis ,  Alfred ,  Euphemia , ' ' 
so,  in  one  of  these  letters,  she  wTites  from  her 
prison,  "  Keep  God  ever  in  your  hearts  all  the  days 
of  your  lives.  Bind  ^^ourselves  to  Him  by  bonds 
that  nothing  can  loosen.  Pray  for  your  father, 
and  labour  for  his  true  happiness.  Remember 
your  mother,  and  never  forget  that  her  one  longing 
for  all  of  you  was  that  she  might  bring  you  up  to 
the  life  eternal."  With  quotations  from  the 
Psalms  begins  the  codicil  to  her  will,  which  she  drew 
up  in  prison  to  dispose  of  her  personal  effects  : 
"  In  the  name  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the 
Holy  Ghost.  Accept,  O  Lord,  the  sacrifice  of  my 
life,  'Into  th}^  hands  I  commend  my  spirit.'  'My 
God,  haste  thee  to  help  me.  Forsake  me  not  when 
my  strength  faileth  me  '  "  (Ps.  xxxi.,  verse  6  ;  Ixxi. 
verses  10,  8).  Her  prayer  was  heard.  Few  scenes 
are  more  striking,  even  in  the  history  of  that  dramatic 
period,  than  that  which  is  described  in  the  Journal 
of  M.  Carrichon,  who  gave  the  prisoners  absolution 
on  their  way  to  the  scaffold.  Months  before, 
he  had  promised  that  he  would  do  them  this  last 
service,  and  arranged  the  disguise  of  a  dark-blue 
coat  and  red  waistcoat,  which  he  would  wear.  The 
message  came  that  the  ladies  were  condemned. 
On  the  appointed  da}^  he  followed  the  cart  in 
which  the  prisoners,  their  hands  bound  behind  them, 
sat  on  a  rude  plank  without  a  back.     The  crowd 


352  1688-1900 

was  great.  He  hurried  along  by-streets  to  point 
after  point  on  the  road  followed  by  the  procession. 
But  all  his  efforts  to  make  his  presence  known  were 
fruitless  ;  he  watched  the  eager  hopefulness  fade 
into  despair.  At  last,  as  though  by  a  miracle,  the 
pitiless  storm  of  wind  and  rain  swept  bare  the 
crowded  street,  and  left  him  almost  alone  and  close 
to  the  cart  in  which  sat  the  women.  All  his  irresolu- 
tion vanished.  The  prisoners  bowed  their  heads 
as  the  disguised  priest  raised  his  hand,  and,  with 
his  head  covered,  pronounced  the  whole  formula  of 
absolution.  The  storm  ceased  ;  the  cart  passed 
on  ;  and  the  women  died  with  unflinching  courage. 

In  September  181 2,  the  French  army  entered 
Moscow.  A  month  later  they  evacuated  the 
smoking  ruins  of  the  city,  and  began  that  retreat 
which  proved  the  turning-point  in  the  fortunes  of 
Napoleon.  It  was  believed  by  the  populace  that 
powder  magazines,  stored  beneath  the  cathedral 
of  the  Kremlin,  would  explode  whenever  the  gates 
were  opened  which  separated  the  altar  from  the 
body  of  the  building.  A  service  was  held  to 
celebrate  the  retreat  of  the  French.  In  spite  of 
the  prevalence  of  this  belief,  a  vast  throng,  drawn 
to  the  spot  by  awe  mingled  with  curiosity,  packed 
the  cathedral  from  end  to  end.  The  Metropolitan 
of  Moscow,  who  was  to  preach  the  sermon,  ap- 
proached the  gates,  opened  them,  and  passed  through 
unharmed.  The  fears  of  the  Russian  peasants 
were  dispelled,  even  as  the  forces  of  Napoleon 
were  dispersed,  and  in  that  supreme  moment 
of  triumph  the  Metropolitan  gave  out  his  text, 
"  Let  God  arise,  and  let  his  enemies  be  scattered  " 
(Ps.  Ixviii.,  verse  i). 

The  power  of  Napoleon,  already  undermined  by 
the  English  successes  in  the  Spanish  Peninsula, 
and  shattered  by  the  disaster  of  the  Russian  cam- 
paign, was  destroyed  at  Waterloo.  The  battle 
was    fought    on    Sunday,    June    18,     181 5.     "At 


SIR  HARRY  SMITH  353 

Waterloo,"  wTites  one  of  the  survivors,  "  the 
whole  field  from  right  to  left  was  a  mass  of  dead 
bodies.  .  .  .  All  over  the  field  you  saw  officers, 
and  as  many  soldiers  as  were  permitted  to  leave 
the  ranks,  leaning  and  weeping  over  some  dead 
or  dying  brother  or  comrade.  The  battle  was  fought 
on  a  Sunday,  the  i8th  of  June,  and  I  repeated 
to  myself  a  verse  from  the  Psalms  of  that  day — 
91st  Psalm,  verse  7  :  *  A  thousand  shall  fall  beside 
thee,  and  ten  thousand  at  thy  right  hand,  but  it 
shall  not  come  nigh  thee.'  I  blessed  Almighty 
God  our  Duke  was  spared,  and  galloped  to  our 
General,  whom  I  found  with  some  breakfast  await- 
ing my  arrival."  The  wTiter,  Sir  Harr^^  (then 
Major)  Smith,  was  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
soldiers  who  were  trained  under  Wellington  in  the 
Peninsular  War.  It  was  at  the  siege  of  Badajoz  that 
he  won  as  his  wife  the  beautiful  Spanish  girl,  who 
is  commemorated  in  the  name  of  Lad5'smith. 
A  warm-hearted,  generous  man,  whose  use  of  strong 
language  w^as  combined  \\ith  deep  religious  feelings, 
he  seems  to  have  made  a  practice  of  daily  reading 
the  Psalms  appointed  for  the  day.  Twenty-five 
years  later,  he  was  on  a  voyage  to  India,  to  take 
up  a  military  appointment.  ShipwTeck  seemed 
imminent  ;  but  on  June  18,  1840,  the  storm 
abated,  and  the  ship  eventually  reached  Madras 
in  safety.  Smith  notes  in  his  autobiography 
that  it  was  the  anniversary  of  Waterloo  ;  that 
"  the  same  Divine  Hand  .  .  .  protected  us,  and  the 
91st  Psalm  was  again  read  in  devotion  and  grati- 
tude to  the  Almighty  and  Eternal  Lord  God,  who 
'  alone  spreadest  out  the  heavens,  and  stillest  the 
raging  of  the  sea.'  " 

Once  again  the  imperial  dynast}^  rose  on  the 
ruins  of  the  French  monarchy.  W^ith  this  second 
rise  and  fall  are  associated  three  psalms.  During  the 
Revolution  of  1848,  which  gave  Napoleon  iii.  his 
opportunity,   Psalm  xlvi.  ("  God  is   our  hope   and 


354  1688-1900 

strength")  was  sung  in  the  streets,  not  only  of  Berlin, 
but  of  Paris.  Twenty-two  years  afterwards,  the  out- 
break of  the  Franco-German  war  found  Maxime 
du  Camp  in  Germany.  On  his  way  back  to  France, 
his  train  was  delayed  by  a  trifling  accident  at  Ulm. 
The  stifling  heat  drove  him  from  the  station  into 
the  square  outside.  As  he  sat  in  the  shade,  he 
heard,  in  the  far  distance,  a  sound  like  the  voices 
of  some  invisible  choir,  singing  in  harmony.  From 
all  sides  children  were  running  in  the  direction 
w^hence  the  sound  proceeded.  Nearer  and  nearer 
came  the  singing  ;  as  it  swelled  in  volume,  it 
seemed  to  throb  with  a  deep  religious  feeling 
which  profoundly  impressed  him.  He  recognised 
Luther's  version  of  Psalm  xlvi.,  which  a  German 
regiment  was  singing  as  it  marched  into  Ulm  to 
garrison  the  citadel.  "  I  asked  myself,"  he  says, 
"  what  will  be  the  character  of  this  war  when 
the  men  who  engage  in  it  march  to  the  chant  of 
psalms  ?  "  He  reached  Paris  two  days  after  the 
Emperor  Napoleon  had  left  for  the  front.  There 
he  found  the  soldiers  preparing  for  war  by  swallow- 
ing absinthe,  swarming  half-tipsy  into  open  carriages, 
and  roaring  the  "  Marseillaise."  "  Which  has 
grown  old,"  he  asked,  "the  National  Air,  or  I?" 
History  has  interpreted  the  lesson  of  the  contrast. 
With  one  gallant  fight,  in  the  terrible  months  that 
followed,  a  psalm  is  associated.  Bourget,  a  little 
village  in  the  Department  of  the  Seine,  was,  on 
three  successive  days  (28th  to  30th  October  1870), 
the  scene  of  desperate  struggles.  When  the  conflict 
was  ended,  there  was  found,  on  the  bullet-pierced 
altar  of  the  church,  a  Psalter.  It  was  open  at 
Psalm  Ivii.  :  "Be  merciful  unto  me,  O  God,  be 
merciful  unto  me,  for  my  soul  trusteth  in  thee  ;  and 
under  the  shadow  of  thy  wings  shall  be  my  refuge, 
until  this  tyranny  be  overpast."  With  a  psalm  is 
associated  yet  another  tragedy  of  the  war.  The 
capitulation  of  Sedan  was  signed  on  September  2, 


THE  EMPRESS  EUGENIE  355 

1870.  Two  days  later,  Paris  was  in  revolt, 
the  Senate  dissolved,  the  Republic  proclaimed. 
Fleeing  for  her  life,  the  Empress  Regent  escaped 
to  the  coast,  took  refuge  on  board  an  English 
yacht,  and  sailed  for  England.  As  the  dawn 
was  breaking,  the  little  party  landed  on  the  pier 
at  Ryde.  Travel-stained,  without  luggage,  and 
on  foot,  they  with  difficulty  found  rooms  at  the 
York  Hotel  in  George  Street.  There  Dr.  Evans, 
who  had  helped  the  Empress  to  escape,  left  her 
while  he  went  in  search  of  the  latest  news  from 
France.  When  he  returned,  he  found  the  Empress 
sitting  with  one  of  the  Bibles  belonging  to  the 
hotel  in  her  lap.  A  fugitive  in  a  foreign  land, 
an  exile  from  the  countr}^  where  she  had  reigned, 
her  husband  a  prisoner,  in  sickening  anxiety  for 
the  fate  of  her  son,  she  had  picked  up  the  volume 
and  opened  it  at  random,  wondering  on  what 
passage  her  eyes  would  first  fall.  The  first  words 
which  she  read  were  those  of  Psalm  xxiii.,  verses 
1-2  :  "  The  Lord  is  my  shepherd  :  therefore  can 
I  lack  nothing.  He  shall  feed  me  in  a  green 
pasture  ;  and  lead  me  forth  beside  the  waters  of 
comfort." 

For  Great  Britain,  it  is  in  India,  or  on  the  Indian 
frontiers,  that  the  romance  of  nineteenth-century 
history  is  mainly  concentrated. 

In  September  1840,  Captain  Arthur  Conolly  was 
sent  from  Cabul  to  Bokhara  to  negotiate  the  release 
of  Colonel  Stoddart.  He  reached  Bokhara  in 
December  of  the  following  year,  and  with  Stoddart 
was  at  once  thrown  into  prison.  For  many  months 
the  two  prisoners  were  kept  in  a  filthy,  unwholesome 
dungeon,  swarming  with  vermin,  without  change 
of  clothing.  In  June  1842,  both  were  executed. 
Several  years  later,  a  little  book  was  purchased  by  a 
Russian  in  one  of  the  bazaars  at  Bokhara.  It  was 
Conolly's  Prayer  Book.  Along  its  margins,  and  on 
its  blank  leaves,  are  noted  the  chief  occurrences  of 
24 


35^  1688--1900 

his  long  imprisonment.  "  Thank  God,"  he  writes 
in  one  place,  "  that  this  book  was  left  to  me. 
Stoddart  and  I  did  not  fully  know  before  our  afflic- 
tion what  was  in  the  Psalms,  or  how  beautiful  are 
the  prayers  of  our  Church." 

It  is  supposed  that  the  news  of  the  destruction  of 
the  Cabul  force  may  have  decided  the  Ameer  of 
Bokhara  to  execute  his  prisoners.  No  disaster  of 
such  magnitude  had  ever  before  befallen  the  British 
arms  in  the  East.  On  January  13,  1842,  from  the 
walls  of  Jellalabad,  a  single  horseman  was  seen 
riding  towards  the  city.  It  was  Dr.  Brydon,  the 
sole  survivor  of  the  Cabul  force.  To  the  British 
garrison  of  Jellalabad  the  news  meant  their  own 
immediate  and  imminent  peril.  They  knew  that 
within  a  few  days  the  storm  would  burst  upon  them  ; 
that,  insufficiently  provided  with  ammunition  and 
scantily  supplied  with  food,  fighting  behind  crumb- 
ling walls  whose  circuit  was  too  vast  to  be  properly 
manned,  they  would  have  to  hold  their  own  for 
weeks  against  a  host  excited  by  previous  victory. 
Such  a  position  might  well  solemnise  the  feelings  of 
the  most  careless.  On  the  next  Sunday  the  whole 
garrison  assembled  for  Divine  service  in  one  of  the 
squares  of  the  Bala  Hissar.  There  was  no  chaplain, 
but  the  Church  Service  was  read  to  the  officers  and 
men  by  a  grey-haired  captain,  of  slight,  well-knit 
figure,  whose  clear  strong  voice  made  every  word 
audible.  Instead  of  the  Psalms  appointed  for  the 
day  he  chose  the  46th  Psalm,  "  God  is  our  hope  and 
strength,"  etc.,  which,  as  he  said,  "  Luther  was  wont 
to  use  in  seasons  of  peculiar  difficulty  and  de- 
pression." The  words,  well  suited  to  the  desperate 
circumstances  of  the  garrison,  expressed  their  de- 
termination to  defend  the  battlements  to  the  last 
extremity.  They  expressed,  also,  the  sublime 
dependence  upon  God  which  was  the  strength  of 
Henry  Havelock,  who  officiated  as  chaplain.  He 
was  then  an  unknown  man   though  he  had  served 


THE  INDIAN  MUTINY  357 

with  distinction  in  Burma,  in  Afghanistan,  Gwalior, 
and  the  Sutlej.  Fifteen  years  later,  when  he  died 
at  the  Alumbagh,  after  the  rehef  of  Lucknow,  his 
name  was  a  household  word.  His  death  was  worthy 
of  his  life.  "  I  have  for  forty  years,"  he  said,  "  so 
ruled  my  life  that,  when  death  came,  I  might  face 
it  without  fear."  His  headlong  march,  his  rapid 
victories — when  the  fate  of  British  rule  seemed 
trembling  in  the  balance — had  made  him  the  idol 
of  the  nation.  He  had  shown  by  his  career,  if 
such  an  example  be  needed,  that  saints  can  be 
soldiers,  and  that  those  fear  men  least  who  fear  God 
most. 

When  Havelock  died  (November  24,  1857),  the 
worst  of  the  Indian  Mutiny  was  over.  But  the 
awful  weeks  which  preceded  his  successes  had 
strained  to  the  utmost  tension  the  confidence  which 
men  and  women  reposed  in  the  mysterious  workings 
of  the  Divine  purpose.  Yet  Dr.  Duff,  writing  from 
Calcutta  in  May  1857,  relied  on  the  promises  of  the 
Psalms.  In  the  midst  of  panic,  open  mutin}^,  and 
secret  disaffection  he  himself  felt  "  a  confident  per- 
suasion that,  though  this  crisis  has  been  permitted 
to  humble  and  warn  us,  our  work  in  India  has  not 
yet  been  accomplished  ;  and  that  until  it  be  ac- 
complished our  tenure  of  Empire,  however  brittle, 
is  secure.  .  .  .  Never  before,"  he  continues,  "  did 
I  realise  as  now  the  literality  and  sweetness  of  the 
Psalmist's  assurance — '  I  laid  me  down  and  slept  ;  I 
awaked  ;  for  the  Lord  sustained  me.  I  will  not  be 
afraid  of  ten  thousands  of  people,  that  have  set 
themselves  against  me  round  about.  Arise,  O  Lord  ; 
save  me,  O  my  God  !  '  "  (Ps  iii.,  verse  5-7). 

Among  records  of  hairbreadth  escapes  during  the 
Indian  Mutiny,  few  are  more  striking  than  the  story 
of  Mr .  William  Edwards,  the  magistrate  and  collector 
of  Budaon,  in  the  Rohilkund  district.  From  June  i , 
1857,  to  August  27,  when  he  joined  Havelock  at 
Cawnpore,  he  was  a  fugitive      With  him  were  a 


3S8  1688-1900 

brother  collector,  Mr.  Probyn,  Mrs.  Probyn  and 
their  four  children.  Weeks  of  mental  anguish  were 
passed  among  natives,  whose  loyalty  was  doubtful, 
and  who  were  under  the  strongest  temptation  to 
treachery.  At  first  they  were  huddled  together  at 
Kussowrah,  in  a  cow-house,  from  which  they  were 
forbidden  to  emerge,  hearing  at  intervals  of  merci- 
less massacres  by  natives,  and  tortured  by  anxiety 
for  the  safety  of  relations  or  friends.  From 
Kussowrah  they  were  moved  to  a  village  called 
Runjepoorah  ("  the  place  of  affliction  "),  a  collection 
of  huts  gathered  on  a  bare  island  a  hundred  yards 
square,  which  rose  above  floods  that  stretched  almost 
as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach.  Here,  during  the  day, 
they  were  so  closely  packed  that  the  only  possible 
change  of  posture  was  sitting  up  or  turning  from  one 
side  to  the  other.  From  Futteghur  they  heard  the 
bands  of  mutineers  playing  English  airs,  and  from 
Furruckabad  came  the  sound  of  guns,  which,  they 
learned,  were  blowing  away  or  shooting  down 
women  and  children.  One  gleam  of  comfort  came 
to  Mr.  Edwards,  but  even  that  was  darkened  with  a 
moment  of  despair.  His  wife  and  child  were  at 
Nynee  Tal,  ignorant  of  his  fate.  A  native  promised, 
if  possible,  to  convey  to  them  a  note.  Mr.  Edwards 
had  only  a  tiny  scrap  of  paper,  half  the  fly-leaf  of 
Bridges  on  the  iigth  Psalm.  On  this  he  wrote  his 
message  in  pencil,  dipped  it  in  milk  to  make  the 
writing  indelible,  and  set  it  out  to  dry.  He  had 
hardly  done  so  when  a  crow  pounced  on  it  and 
carried  it  off.  But  fortunately  his  native  servant 
had  seen  what  had  happened,  followed  the  bird, 
and  recovered  the  note. 

On  July  26  they  were  able  to  return  to  the  cow- 
house at  Kussowrah.  Their  quarters  were  less 
cramped.  But  the  heat  was  terrible  ;  tormented 
by  myriads  of  flies,  starting  at  every  unusual  noise, 
they  could  only  sleep  when  they  had  lighted  heaps 
of  dried  cow-dung,  which  poured  out  volumes  of 


DIARY  OF  WILLIAM  EDWARDS       359 

acrid  smoke  and  kept  the  insects  at  bay.  One  of 
the  Probyn  children  died,  and  then  another.  The 
Psalms,  however,  proved  to  them  a  storehouse  of 
comfort.  "  There  is  not  a  day,"  writes  Mr.  Ed- 
wards in  his  Diary  for  August  5,  "  on  which  we  do 
not  find  something  that  appears  as  if  written  espe- 
cially for  persons  in  our  unhappy  circumstances, 
to  meet  the  feelings  and  wants  of  the  day.  This 
morning,  for  instance,  I  derived  unspeakable  comfort 
from  the  13th  and  i6th  verses  of  the  25th  Psalm 
("  The  secret  of  the  Lord  is  among  them  that  fear 
Him  ;  and  He  will  show  them  His  covenant,"  and 
"  The  sorrows  of  my  heart  are  enlarged  :  O  bring 
Thou  me  out  of  my  troubles  ") ;  and  in  the  evening, 
from  the  14th,  15th,  and  i6th  verses  of  the  27th 
(verse  16,  "  O  tarry  thou  the  Lord's  leisure  ;  be 
strong,  and  He  shall  comfort  thine  heart ;  and  put 
thou  thy  trust  in  the  Lord  "). 

After  a  sleepless  night,  devoured  by  mosquitoes, 
depressed  in  mind  and  body,  he  writes,  August  16  : 
"  It  is  at  such  times  I  feel  the  real  blessing  the  Psalms 
are.  They  never  fail  to  give  peace  and  refreshment, 
when  all  is  dark  and  gloomy  within  and  without. 
The  circumstances  under  which  many  of  them  were 
written,  seasons  of  danger  and  almost  despair — 
David  fleeing  and  hiding  from  bloodthirsty  enemies, 
as  we  are — render  them  peculiarly  suitable  to  our 
case.  This  morning  I  felt  the  5th  verse  of  the  68th 
Psalm  most  soothing,  in  the  assurance  it  gives  me 
that,  if  I  am  cut  off,  my  God  will  be  with  my  widow 
and  fatherless  children"  ("  He  is  a  Father  of  the 
fatherless,  and  defendeth  the  cause  of  the  widows, 
even  God  in  His  holy  habitation  ").  Or  again,  on 
August  24,  he  notes,  "  Finished  to-day,  for  the 
second  time,  that  excellent  work  Bridges  on  the 
iigth  Psalm  ;  the  sole  book  in  my  hands,  except  the 
Bible,  for  the  past  two  months  ;  and  fortunate  have 
I  been  to  have  had  these  sources  of  consolation." 
They  were  now  in  communication  with  Havelock  ; 


360  I688-I900 

but  the  difficulty  of  traversing  a  country  infested 
with  mutineers  was  great.  "  Nothing  new  settled," 
writes  Edwards  on  August  27,  "  about  our  plans, 
and  we  are  much  harassed.  Heavy  guns  firmg  at 
Furruckabad  to-day,  we  know  not  from  what  cause  ; 
but  they  reminded  us  painfully  of  our  fearful  prox- 
imity to  that  place  where  are  so  many  thirsting  for 
our  lives.  Amidst  it  all,  to-day's  Psalms  are  most 
consoling,  and  wonderfully  suited  to  our  case, 
especially  the  121st"  ("  I  will  lift  up  mine  eyes 
unto  the  hills,  from  whence  cometh  my  help"). 

Three  da^^'s  later,  the  party  started  to  run  the 
gauntlet  for  1 50  miles  of  river  way,  through  the 
midst  of  the  enemy's  country.  The  journey  was 
successfully  made.  After  three  months  of  hourly 
suspense  and  danger,  they  were  safe  with  the  British 
troops. 

From  the  Psalms  the  quiet  confidence  of  Dr.  Duff 
drew  its  serenity  ;  from  them  also  the  endurance 
of  Mr.  Edwards  derived  its  patient  fortitude.  The 
relief  of  Lucknow  showed  that  the  active  daring, 
which  not  only  braves  death  but  courts  it,  may 
be  equally  stirred  by  the  Psalms.  "  Quaker  " 
Wallace  of  the  93rd  Regiment,  went  into  the  Secun- 
drabagh,  says  an  eye-witness,  "like  one  of  the  Furies, 
if  there  are  any  male  Furies,  plainly  seeking  death, 
but  not  meeting  it,"  and  chanting  the  i  i6th  Psalm, 
Scottish  version  in  metre,  beginning  at  the  ist 
verse  : 

"  I  love  the  Lord,  because  my  voice 
And  prayers  He  did  hear. 
I,  while  I  live,  will  call  on  Him, 
Who  bowed  to  me  His  ear." 

And  thus  he  plunged  into  the  Secundrabagh,  quoting 
a  line  at  every  shot  fired  from  his  rifle,  and  at  each 
thrust  given  by  his  bayonet  : 

"  I'll  of  salvation  take  the  cup, 
On  God's  name  will  I  call  ; 
I'll  pay  my  vows  now  to  the  Lord 
Before  His  people  all." 


THE  BOER  WAR  361 

The  Indian  Mutiny  does  not  afford  the  latest 
example  of  the  influence  of  the  Psalms  on  our 
secular  history.  Even  in  the  present  century,  they 
have  shown  their  power  on  the  battlefields  of 
nations.  Among  the  Boer  forces  during  the  South 
African  War,  and  among  the  Boer  prisoners  in 
Bermuda,  the  favourite  Psalm  was  cxlvi.  It  would 
not  be  wholly  fanciful  to  compare  the  struggle 
carried  on  by  the  Scottish  Covenanters  against 
seventeenth-century  England,  with  the  challenge 
thrown  down  by  the  Boers  to  the  British  Empire 
of  the  twentieth  century.  In  their  pastoral 
habits,  their  civilisation,  their  education,  their 
deep,  yet  narrow  religion,  their  sturdy  independence, 
Boers  and  Covenanters  stand  close  together.  To 
us,  who  regard  the  conflicts  from  the  vantage- 
ground  of  the  past,  it  may  seem  that  the  triumph 
of  the  large  battalions  was  from  the  first  inevitable. 
Yet  in  both  cases  geographical  conditions  favoured 
the  smaller  force,  and  foreign  aid,  or  civil  discord, 
was  not  unreasonably  anticipated.  Both  Boer  and 
Covenanter  arrogated  to  himself  the  promises  of  the 
Psalms.  To  the  dwellers  on  the  sohtary  veldts  of 
South  Africa,  the  words  appealed  with  the  same 
peculiar  force  which  they  had  possessed  for  the 
inhabitants  of  the  lonely  recesses  of  the  Lowland 
hills,  and  both  Covenanter  and  Boer  fought  in  the 
conviction  that  the  Lord  of  Hosts  was  on  his  side. 

In  President  Kruger's  frequent  appeals  to  the 
Psalms,  it  is  unnecessary  to  discover  hypocrisy. 
Treachery,  guile,  cruelty,  even  if  such  faults  could 
fairly  be  laid  to  his  charge,  are  not  inconsistent  with 
religious  sincerity,  when  minds  of  a  peculiar  type 
and  training  are  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  Old 
Testament,  or  convinced  that  they  are  fighting 
the  Lord's  battle  against  His  enemies.  It  is  as  a 
Cromwellian  captain,  or  as  a  Scottish  Covenanter, 
that  he  addresses  his  burghers  in  language  which 
goes  directly  to  their  hearts.     His  speech  to   the 


362  I688-I900 

Volksraads  on  October  2,  1899,  couched  in  the 
language  of  the  Psahns,  interpreted  their  promises 
in  favour  of  the  Boers.  "  Read,"  he  said,  "  that 
psalm  attentively  (Ps.  cviii.,  '  O  God,  my  heart  is 
ready,'  etc.),  and  associate  your  prayers  with  that  : 
then  will  the  Lord  guide  us  ;  and,  when  He  is  with 
us,  who  shall  be  against  us  ?  "  Similar  was  his 
speech  on  May  7,  1900,  in  opening  the  Volksraads. 
There  he  applied  the  words  of  Psalm  Ixxxiii. 
("  Hold  not  thy  tongue,  O  God,"  etc.)  to  the 
struggle  with  the  British  Empire,  and  dwelt  especi- 
ally on  verse  4,  where  the  enemies  of  God  say, 
"  Come,  and  let  us  root  them  out,  that  they  be  no 
more  a  people  ;  and  that  the  name  of  Israel  may 
be  no  more  in  remembrance."  "  Psalm  Ixxxiii.," 
argued  the  President,  "  speaks  of  the  attacks  of  the 
Evil  One  on  Christ's  Kingdom,  which  must  no 
longer  exist.  And  now  the  same  words  come  from 
Salisbury,  for  he  too  says,  '  This  people  must  not 
exist,'  and  God  says,  '  This  people  shall  exist.' 
Who  will  win?  Surely,  the  Lord."  So  again,  in 
his  circular  despatch  to  his  officers,  dated  from 
Machadodorp,  June  20,  1900,  he  returned  to  the 
same  passage.  "  According  to  Psalm  Ixxxiii.,  the 
enemies  of  old  said  that  the  people  shall  not  exist 
in  Christ's  Kingdom.  Salisbur}^  and  Chamberlain 
stand  convicted  by  their  own  words  :  *  They  shall 
not  exist  '  ;  but  the  Lord  sa^^s,  '  This  people  shall 
exist,'  and  Christ  is  our  Commander-in-Chief,  Who 
leads  us  with  His  Word."  Or,  lastly,  it  is  again 
to  the  Psalms  that  he  made  his  appeal  a  month 
later,  in  a  final  despatch  to  his  officers  from  Macha- 
dodorp :  "  See,"  he  wrote,  "  the  promise  of  the 
Lord  in  Psalm  cviii.,  where  He  says,  they  who 
fight  through  God  shall  do  so  valiantly,  and  the 
Lord  will  deliver  them,  and  tread  down  their 
enemies.  Keep  courage,  therefore,  you  God-fearing 
band  ;  the  Lord  will  display  His  strength  to  your 
weakness.  .  .  .  Each  of  ye  knows  as   I   do,  how 


PRESIDENT  KRUGER  363 

unjust  and  godless  the  war  is,  as  we  were  willing  to 
yield  almost  everything,  if  we  could  only  keep 
our  liberty  and  our  independence.  See  Psalm 
Ixxxiii.,  how  the  evil  spirit  of  the  air  said  that  the 
valiant  fighter  named  Israel  must  not  exist,  and 
the  Lord  says,  '  He  shall  exist.'  .  .  .  Then  the 
same  spirit  answered  that  this  nation  must  not 
exist,  or,  to  use  his  own  words,  '  I  will  not  permit 
your  nation  to  continue  to  be  a  nation.'  Dear 
brothers,  through  God's  Word  I  am  sure  of  this, 
that  the  victory  is  ours." 

A  German  mystic  has  said,  and  Goethe  has 
endorsed  the  saying,  "  He  whom  God  deludes  is 
well  deluded."  In  its  entirety,  the  saying  is  a 
hard  one  ;  yet  it  contains  a  truth.  Only  the 
immediate  issues  in  the  Boer  War  have  been  at 
present  decided.  The  ultimate  effects  on  the 
civilised  progress  of  the  world  and  the  general 
interests  of  mankind  belong  to  the  region  of  the 
future  and  of  hope.  But  as  it  has  been  with  the 
Covenanters,  so  it  may  be  with  the  Boers.  Virtues 
which  lent  dignity  and  pathos  to  the  struggle  for 
independence  may  gain  a  broader  sphere  of  exercise 
than  the  narrow  field  on  which  they  were  previously 
concentrated.  The  record  of  the  Cameronian 
Regiment,  raised  among  the  defeated  Covenanters, 
and  first  commanded  by  one  of  the  leaders  at  Drum- 
clog,  may  be  reproduced  on  a  larger  scale  in  the 
future  history  of  the  Boer  people. 

When  the  pages  of  some  ancient  brown-bound 
volume  are  turned,  there  flutters  from  between  the 
leaves  the  withered  petal  of  a  rose.  The  flower 
is  faded,  dry,  scentless  ;  but  it  has  imprinted  some- 
thing of  its  shape  and  colour  on  the  pages  between 
which  it  has  been  pressed.  As  it  floats  to  the 
ground,  the  most  unimaginative  of  us  is  conscious 
of  the  desire  to  read  its  secret.  What  moment 
of  joy  or  sorrow,  of  despair  or  hope,  did  it  com- 
memorate in  the  distant  days,  when  the  page  was 


364  I688-I900 

yet  unstained,  the  petal  full  of  fragrance  and 
colour,  the  hand  that  placed  it  there  still  throbbing 
with  life  ? 

Something  similar  is  the  effect  of  studying  the 
Psalms  through  human  history.  There  is  scarcely 
a  leaf  in  the  Psalter  which  is  not  stained  by  some 
withered  flower  of  the  past.  To  gather  some  of 
these  petals  and  read  their  meaning,  as  they  fall 
thick  from  the  pages,  has  been  the  purpose  of  this 
book.  Vain  must  be  the  effort  to  recall  to  life 
persons  or  events  divided  from  us  by  centuries 
of  change.  But  as  we  read  the  familiar  verses, 
the  words  bring  before  us,  one  by  one,  the  hundreds 
of  men  and  women,  who,  passing  from  tribulation 
into  joy,  have,  in  the  language  of  the  Psalms,  con- 
quered the  terrors  of  death,  proclaimed  their  faith, 
or  risen  to  new  effort  and  final  victory. 


APPENDIX    A 

PRINCIPAL  AUTHORITIES 

Chapter  I.   (pages  i-io). 

Archbishop  Alexander — The  Witness  of  the  Psalms  to  Christ 
and  Christianity.     \^77-     (Bampton  Lectures  for  1876.) 

C.  L.  Marson — The  Psalms  at  Work.     2nd  ed.      1895. 

John  Ker — The  Psalms  in  History  and  Biography.      1886. 

[See  also  my  Article  on  "  The  Psalms  in  History  "  in 

the    Quarterly  Review  for   April    1897,    vol.   clxxxv. 

P-  305-] 

John  Smeaton — A  Narrative  of  the  Building  and  a  Description 

of  the  Construction  of  the  Eddystone  Lighthouse  with  stone, 

etc.      1 79 1. 

Official  Description  and  Illustrated  Catalogue  of  the  Great 
Exhibition  of  iS^l. 

Mrs.  Alfred  Gatty — The  Book  of  Sundials.  Enlarged  and 
re-edited  by  Horatio  K.  F.  Eden  and  Eleanor  Lloyd. 
4th  ed.      1900. 

Charles  Leadbetter — Mechanick  Dialling  ;  or,  The  New  Art 

of  Shadows,  etc.     17 2)7 • 
Herbert  A.  Grueber — Handbook  of  the  Coins  of  Great  Britain 

and  Ireland.      (Appendix  B.)      1899. 

Leopold  G.  Wickham  'L^gg— English  Coronation  Records. 
1901. 

Sir  Philip  Sidney- — The  Psalmes  of  David,  etc.  .  .  .  Begun 
by  the  noble  and  learned  gent.  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  Kt.,  and 
finished  by  the  Right  Honourable  the  Countess  of  Pembroke, 
his  sister.  Now  first  printed  from  a  copy  of  the  original 
manuscript  transcribed  by  John  Davies,  of  Hereford,  in 
the  reign  of  James  the  First.     1823. 

Francis  Bacon — Certaine  Psalmes  in  Verse.      1625. 

365 


366  PRINCIPAL  AUTHORITIES 

George  Sandys — A  Paraphrase  upon  the  First  Booke  of  the 
Psalmes  of  David.     1636. 

Henry  Howard,  Earl  of  Surrey — Poems.     1547. 

Sir  Thomas  Wyatt — The  Seven  Penitential  Psalmes  drawen 
into  English  Meter.      1549.     Poems.     (Aldine  edition.) 

Sir  Thomas  Smith — Certaigne  Psalmes  or  Songnes  of  David. 
1549.     (MS.  Brit.  Mus.) 

Sir  Henry  Wotton — Psalm  civ.  in  ReliquicB  Wottonice. 

John  Hookham  Frere — Selection  of  Psalms.  {Works,  ed. 
1872,  vol.  ii.) 

Archbishop  Matthew  Parker — The  whole  Psalter,  etc.,  n.d. 
[1560.] 

Bishop  Joseph  Hall — Some  few  of  David's  Psalmes  meta- 
phrazed  in  Metre.  1607.  {Works,  vol.  ix.  Ed.  Philip 
Wynter.      1863.) 

Bishop  Henry  King — The  Psalms  of  David  from  the  New 
Translation  of  the  Bible,  turned  into  Meeter.      165 1. 

Bishop  Samuel  Woodford — A  Paraphrase  in  English  Verse, 
upon  the  Books  of  the  Psalms.     1667. 

Queen  Elizabeth — Psalm  xiv.  (See  A  Godly  Meditation  of 
the  Christian  Soul.     1548.) 

King  James  I. — The  Psalmes  of  King  David.     1631. 

Francis  Rous — The  Psalmes  of  David  in  English  Meeter.    1641. 

Thomas,  Lord  Fairfax — (unpublished).  See  Preface  to 
Henry  Cotton's  Editions  of  the  Bible  and  parts  thereof  in 
English.     2nd  ed.      1852. 

George  Wither — The  Psalms  translated  into  Lyric  Verse, 
according  to  the  Scope  of  the  Original.     1632. 

Phinehas  Fletcher — Six  Psalms  were  published  in  Mis- 
cellanies, appended  to  his  Purple  Island.      1633. 

[See  Poetical  Works.     Ed.  A.  B.  Grosart.     4  vols.  1869.] 

Richard  Crash  aw — Steps  to  the  Temple.     1646. 

Henry  Vaughan — Silex  Scintillans.     (Psalm  cxxxi.)      1650. 

Robert  Burns — Psalms  i.,  xiv.  in  Poetical  Works.     Ed.  1787. 
[See  Robert  Chambers's  Life  and  Works  of  Burns,  vol. 
i.,  1856.] 

William  Cowper — Psalm  cxxxvii.  in  Poems. 

John  Milton — Psalms  cxiv.,  cxxxvi.  (1623)  ;  Ixxx.-lxxxviii. 
(1648)  ;    i.-viii.  (1653). 

[See  Poems Jn  English  and  Latin.     2nd  ed.     1673.] 


APPENDIX  A  367 

George  Herbert — 1632.  Seven  versions  first  printed  in 
Fuller's  Worthies  Library.     Ed.  A.  B.  Grosart.      1874. 

John  Keble — The  Psalter,  or  Psalms  of  David  in  English 
Verse,  by  a  member  of  the   University  of   Oxford.     1839. 

Sir  Richard  Blackmore — Version  of  the  Book  of  Psalms. 
1721. 

Luke  Milbourne — The  Psalms  of  David  in  English  Metre. 
1698. 

Joseph  Addison — Psalm  xxiii.  Spectator,  No.  441.  Psalm 
xix.     Spectator,  No.  465. 

Charles  Wesley — The  Poetical  Works  of  John  and  Charles 
Wesley,  etc.  Collected  and  arra.nged  by  George  Osborn. 
13  vols.      1868-72. 

Isaac  Watts — The  Psalms  of  David  Imitated  in  the  Language  of 
the  New  Testament,  And  apply' d  to  the  Christian  State  and 
Worship,  by  I.  Watts.      17 19. 

Rousseau — Les  Confessions  de  J.  J.  Rousseau.     178 1,  1788. 

Goethe — A  us  Meinem  Leben — Dichtung  und  Wahrheit.     1 8 1 1 . 

St.  Augustine — Confessions.  Trans,  and  ed.  Charles  Bigg, 
D.D.,  1898. 

De  Imitatione  Christi.  Ed.  John  Kells  Ingram.  (Early  English 
Text  Society  ;    Extra  Series,  No.  Ixiii.,  1893.) 

John  Bunyan — Grace  abounding  to  the  Chief  of  Sinners  ;  in  a 
Faithful  Account  of  the  Life  and  Death  of  John  Bunyan,  etc. 
1666. 

Bishop  Lancelot  Andrewes — Rev.  Patris  Lane.  Andrews 
Episc.  Winton.  Preces  Privates  Greece  et  Latine.  (Oxonii 
e  Theatro  Sheldoniano,  mdclxxv.)  Ed.  Peter  Goldsmith 
Medd.  1892.  Trans,  by  John  Henry  Newman.  "Tracts 
for  the  Times,"  No.  88. 

[See    also    Lancelot    Andreives,    by    Robert    Lawrence 
Ottley.     Appendix  D.     1894.] 

Blaise  Pascal — Pensees  de  M.  Pascal  sur  la  Religion  et  siir 
quelques  autres  sujets,  qui  oni  este  trouvees  aprds  sa  mort 
parmy  ses  papier s.     1669. 


Chapter  II.   (pages  11-39). 

Gibbon — Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire.     Ed.  J.  B. 
Bury.     7  vols.     1896- 1900. 


368  PRINCIPAL  AUTHORITIES 

The  Book  of  Hymns  of  the  Ancient  Church  of  Ireland.  Printed 
for  the  Irish  Archaeological  and  Celtic  Society.  Part  I., 
1855  ;   Part  II.,  1869. 

Canon  Bright — A  History  of  the  Church,  a.d.  313-451.  2nd 
ed.,  1869. 

The  Age  of  the  Fathers.     2  vols.     1903. 

William  Palmer — Dissertations  on  Subjects  relating  to  the 
Orthodox  Communion.     Dissertation  xx.      1853. 

Alban  Butler — Lives  of  the  Saints.     12  vols.      1756,  etc. 

S,  Baring-Gould — Lives  of  the  Saints.  New  edition.  16  vols. 
1897-98. 

LaurentiusSurius — Histories  seu  Vitcs Sanctorum.  6 vols.  1581. 

Smith  and  Wage — Dictionary  of  Christian  Biography.  4  vols. 
1877-87. 

G.  Fabre — Etudes  sur  Paulin  de  Nole.     1861. 

Adolf  Buse — Paulin  .  .  .  und  seine  Zeit.     2  Bde.     1856. 

Henry  Vaughan,  the  Silurist — Primitive  Holiness.     1654. 

Ambrose — In  Psalmum  I  Enarratio.     (Migne,  xiv.  925.) 
Hexaemeron.     {Ibid.,  223.) 

Am6d6e  S.  D.  Thierry — Saint  Jdrome.     2  tomes.      1867. 

Carl  Ullmann — Life  of  Gregory  of  Nazianzum.  Trans. 
George  Valentine  Cox.      1 8  5 1 . 

St.  Augustine — Confessions.  Trans,  and  ed.  Charles  Bigg, 
D.D.,  1898. 

L'Abb6  Baunard — Vie  de  Saint  Ambroise.      1871. 

Dmitri  Merejkowski — The  Death  of  the  Gods.     1 89 1 . 

J.  H.  Newman — Historical  Sketches.     3  vols.     1872-73. 

Athanasius — Apologia  de  Fugd  Sua. 

Dean  Stanley — Lectures  on  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Church. 
1861. 

The  Letter  of  Paula  and  Eustochium  to  Marcella  about  the  Holy 
Places.  Trans.  Aubrey  Stewart.  1889.  (Palestine  Pil- 
grims' Text  Society,  vol.  i.) 

C  F.  R.  DE  Montalembert — Moines  de  VOccident.  Ed. 
1860-77.  (References  throughout  to  English  edition,  with 
introduction  by  Gasquet.     6  vols.      1896.) 

[See  also  my  Article,  "  Rabelais  at  Home,"  in  Black- 
wood's Magazine  for  April  1894,  vol.  civ.  p.  504.] 

J.  V.  A.  DE  Broglie — L'Eglise  et  l' Empire  Romain  au  IV' 
Sihle.     6  tomes.     1856-66. 


APPENDIX  A  369 

Joseph  M'Cabe — Saint  Augustine  and  Ms  Age.     1902. 
Augustus  J.  C.  Hare — Studies  in  Russia.      1885. 


Chapter  III.   (pages  40-71). 

Procopius — De  Bella  Vandalico  ;  De  Bella  Gatthico. 

Fladoardi  histaria  Remensis  Ecclesice.  Ed.  John  Heller  et 
G.  Waltz.      (Pertz  M.  G.  H.,  xiii.  405.) 

John  Pinkerton — VitcB  antiques  Sanctarum  Scotics.  Ed. 
Metcalfe.     2  vols.     Paisley,  1889. 

J.  H.  Newman — The  Lives  of  the  English  Saints,  written  by 
various  hands  at  the  suggestion  of  John  Henry  Newman, 
afterivards  Cardinal.     6  vols.      1 900-1. 

Mon.  Germ.  Hist.      Vita  S.  Severini,  autore  Eugippio.      1862. 

Jerome  Pez — Scriptores Rerum  Austriacarum.  3  vols.  1743-45. 

Charles  Kingsley — The  Hermits. 

John  Lingard — The  History  and  Antiquities  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  Church.     3rd  ed.      2  vols.      1845. 

John  O'Hanlon — Lives  of  the  Irish  Saints.     1875,  etc. 

Margaret  Stokes — Six  months  in  the  Apennines  ;  or,  A 
Pilgrimage  in  search  of  vestiges  of  the  Irish  saints  in 
Italy.      1892. 

Three  months  in  the  forests  of  France  ;  A  pilgrim- 
age in  search  of  vestiges  of  the  Irish  saints  in 
France.      1895. 

George  Thomas  Stokes — Ireland  and  the  Celtic  Church  :  a 
history  of  Ireland  from  St.  Patrick  to  the  English  conquest 
in  iiys.     3rd  ed.     1892. 

Thomas  Hodgkin — Italy  and  her  Invaders.  8  vols.  1880- 
1899. 

A.  H.  Hoffmann  von  Fallersleben — Fundgruben  fiir 
Geschichte  deutscher  Sprache  und  Literatur.  2  Bde. 
1830-37. 

D.  H.  Stoever — Life  of  Sir  C.  LinncBus.  Trans.  Joseph  Trapp. 
1794. 

C.  J.  Hefele — History  of  the  Church  Councils.  Trans.  W.  R, 
Clark.     Vol.  iv.      1871,  etc. 

Stephen  Baluze — Capitularia  Regum  Francorum.  Tome  i. 
1677. 

Vita  Columbani ,  auctore  Jona  Monacho.    (Migne,  Ixxxvii.  1014. 


370  PRINCIPAL  AUTHORITIES 

Tripartite  Life  of  St.  Patrick.     Ed.  Whitley  Stokes.     (Rolls 
Scries,  89.) 

AcHiLLE  JuBiNAL — La  LSgende  Latine  de  St.  Brandaines. 

Percy  Society — Vol.  xiv.     St.  Brandan  :  A  Mediceval  Legend 
of  the  Sea,  etc.     Ed.  Thomas  Wright.     1844. 

Adamnan — Vita  S.    ColumbcB.     Ed.   William   Reeves.      1857. 

(See  also  trans,  and  ed.  Joseph  Thomas  Fowler,  D.C.L. 

1895-) 
Bede — Vita  S.  Cuthberti. 

S.    Gregorii    Magni    Vita,    auctore    Joanne    diacono.     (Migne, 
Ixxv.  230.) 

Vita    Hugonis    Cluniensis,    auctore    Hildeberto    Cenomanensi 
Episcopo.     (Migne,  clix.  867.) 

Eduard  Woelfflin — Benedicti  Regula  Monachorum.      1895. 
AbregS  de  la  Vie  de  S.  FranQois  de  Borgia.      167 1. 

DoM  Vincent  Scully — Life  of  the  Venerable  Thomas  d  Kempis. 
1901. 

Vita    S.    Dunstani,    auctore    Adelardo.     Ed.    Stubbs.     (Rolls 
Series,  6 2.) 

Chapter  IV,   (pages  72-114). 

H.  Martin — Histoire  de  France.     4th  ed. 

L.  Sergeant — The  Franks.     (Stories  of  the  Nations.)      1898. 

F.  R.  GuETTi;E — Histoire  de  I'Eglise  de  France.      1856. 

Sir  James  Stephen — Essays  in  Ecclesiastical  Biography.     Ed. 
1891. 

M.  Bouquet — Recueil  des  historiens  des  Gaules  et  de  la  France. 
"  Pepin  et  Charlemagne."     Tome  V.     Nouvelle  ed.    1869. 

James  Bryce — The  Holy  Roman  Empire.     New  ed.     Revised. 
1866. 

J.  W.  BovvDEN — Life  of  Gregory  VII.     2  vols.      1840. 

R.  W.  Q.n\5^cn—Anselm.     Ed.  1888. 

C.  De  R^musat — 5.  Anselme  de  CantorbSry.     2'"<=  ed. 

Dean  Stanley — Memorials  of  Canterbury.     Ed.  1868. 

Lectures  on  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Church.    1861. 

E.  G.  Gardner — The  Story  of  Siena.     1902. 

H.    F.    Reuter — Geschichte   Alexanders   des   dritten,    und   die 
Kirche  seiner  Zeit.     1860-64. 


APPENDIX  A  371 

The  Pilgrimage  of  S.  Silvia  of  Aquitania  to  the  Holy  Places. 
Trans.  John  H.  Bernard,  1891.  (Palestine  Pilgrims'  Text 
Society,  vol.  i.) 

Of  the  Holy  Places  visited  by  Antoninus  Martyr.  Trans. 
Aubrey  Stewart,  1887.  (Palestine  Pilgrims' Text  Society, 
vol.  ii.) 

Theodosiiis  on  the  Topography  of  the  Holy  Land.  Trans.  J.  H. 
Bernard,  1893.    (Palestine  Pilgrims'  Text  Society,  vol.  ii.) 

5.  Silvics  AquiiancB  Peregrinatio  ad  loca  Sancta  quae  inedita  ex 
codice  Aretino  deprompsit  Joh.  Franc.  Gamurrini.      1887. 

Antonini  Placentini  Itinerarium.  (Corp.  Script.  Eccl.  Lat. 
xxxiiii.  173.) 

Theodosius  De  Situ  Term  Sanctis.     {Ibid.,  135). 

Dean  Hook. — Lives  of  the  Archbishops  of  Canterbury.     Vol.  ii. 

Itinerarium  regis  Anglorum  Richardi  et  aliorum  in  terram 
Hierosolymorum,  auctore  Gaitfrido  Vinisauf.  Apud 
Historiae  Anglicanse  Scriptores  Quinque.  Ed.  Thos.  Gale. 
Vol.  ii.  p.  245^     1687. 

Karamsin — Histoire  de  Russie.     Tomes  ii.,  v. 

J.  H.  Newman — The  Lives  of  the  English  Saints,  written  by 
various  hands,  etc.,  vol.  i. 

Narratio  de  Fundatione  Fontanis  Monasterii  in  Coniitatu 
Eboracensi.  Ed.  J.  R.  Walbran.  1863.  Vol.  i.  (Sur- 
tees  Society,  42.) 

Epistolce  Cantuarienses.  No.  cccxlvi.  Ed.  Stubbs.  (Rolls 
Series,  38b.) 

P.  Sabatier — Life  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi.  Trans.  L.  S. 
Houghton.      1896. 

Speculum  Perfectionis,  seu  S.  Francisci  Assisiensis  Legenda 
Antiquissima,  auctore  Fratre  Leone.  Trans.  Sebastian 
Evans.      1898. 

Matthew  Arnold — Essays  in  Criticism,     ist  Series.     1865. 

C.  J.  VON  Hefele — Life  and  Tiines  of  Cardinal  Ximenes. 
Trans.  Dalton.      1885. 

Ordericus  Vitalis — Historia  ecclesiastica,  etc.  Apud  Monu- 
menta  Germaniae  Historica.  Ed.  Pertz.  Scriptores  xx, 
SO. 

MouRAviEFF — The  Church  of  Russia.  Trans.  Blackmore. 
1842. 

J.  Cotter  Morison — Life  of  St.  Bernard.     1863. 

Joseph  M'Cabe — Peter  Abelard.     1901. 

25 


372  PRINCIPAL  AUTHORITIES 

John     Pinkerton — Vita    antiques    Sanctorum    Scotics.     Ed. 
Metcalfe.      1889. 

P.  Fraser  Tytler — Scottish  Worthies.     3  vols.      1831-33. 

F.  Perry — St.  Louis.     1901. 

S.  Kettlewell — Authorship  of  the  "  De  Imitatione  Christi." 
1871. 

Thomas  d,  Kempis  and  the  Brothers  of  Common 
Life.     2  vols.      1882. 

C.    Wolfegruber — Giovanni    Gersen,    sein    Leben    und    sein 
Werk  "  De  Imitatione  Christi."     1880. 

Dante — Divina  Commedia.     Trans.  Cary. 

W.  Langland — Vision  of  Piers  Plowman.     Ed.  Skeat. 

[For  the  legends  of  South- Western  France,  sec  my 
Article,  "  French  Stone-Superstitions,"  in  the 
Anglican  Church  Magazine  for  October  1888,  vol.  v. 
p.  19.] 

Drummond   of  Hawthornden — A    Hymn  of  the  Ascension. 
(Muses  Library  Edition,  vol.  ii.) 

The  Golden  Legend.     Trans.  W.  Caxton.     (Temple  Classics,  ed. 
Ellis.) 


Chapter  V.   (pages  1 15-145). 

Bishop  Creighton — History  of  the  Papacy  from  the  Great 
Schism  to  the  Sack  of  Rome.     New  ed.     6  vols.      1897. 

John  Wyclif  at  Oxford.  Church  Quarterly  Review 
for  October  1877.  Reprinted  in  Historical 
Essays  and  Reviews.     1902. 

Influence  of  the  Reformation  upon  England,  with 
Special  Reference  to  the  Works  and  Writings  of 
John  Wyclif.  A  Paper  read  at  the  Carlisle 
Church  Congress,  1884.  Reprinted  in  The 
Church  and  the  Nation.     1901. 

B.  NiEHUES — Geschichte  des  V erhdltnisses  zwischen  Kaiserthum 
und  Papstthum  im  Mittelalter.      1863. 

L'Abbe  J.  B.  Christophe — Histoire  de  la  Papauti  pendant  le 
XV""  Siecle.     2  tomes.      1863. 

J.  Loserth — Hus  und  Wiclif.     1884. 

[See  also^my 'Article  on  "  John  Wyclif  "  in  the  Church 
Quarterly  Review  ior  October  1891  (vol.  xxxiii.  p.  115), 
and  the  authorities  there  cited.] 


APPENDIX  A  373 

J.  Wyclif — De  quatuor  Sectis  Novellis.  (Wyclif  Society, 
Polemical  Works,  vol.  i.,  1883.) 

T.  Walsingham — Historia  Anglicana.  Ed.  H.  T.  Riley. 
Vol.  ii.      (Rolls  Series,  28.) 

Pasquale  Villari — Life  and  Times  of  Girolamo  Savonarola. 
Trans.  Linda  Villari.     2  vols.      1888. 

Margaret  Oliphant — Makers  of  Florence  .  .  .  and  their  City. 

1876. 

[See  also  my  Articles  on  "  Savonarola  "  in  the  Edinburgh 

Review  for  July  1889  (vol.  clxxix.  p.  68),  and  in  the 

Church  Quarterly  Review  for    July  1889  (vol.  xxviii. 

p.  426),  and  the  authorities  there  cited.] 

Meditatio  pia  et  erudita  Hier.  SavonarolcB  a  papa  exusti,  supra 
Psalmos  "  Miserere  mei  "  et  "  In  te,  Domine,  speravi  " 
cum  prcsfatione  Lutheri.      1523. 

J.  C.  L.  GiESELER — Ecclesiastical  History.  Trans.  J.  W.  Hull. 
1853.     Vol.  iv. 

Table  Talk  of  Martin  Luther.     Trans,  and  ed.  W.  Hazlitt.   1890. 

Martin  Luther's  erste  und  nlteste  Vorlesungen  iiber  die  Psalmen. 
Ed.  J.  C.  Seidemann.      1876. 

Julius  Koestlin — Martin  Luther ;  sein  Leben  und  seine 
Schriften.     2nd  ed.      1883. 

F:6ux  KuHN — Luther,  sa  Vie  etson  CEtivre.    2  tomes.     1883,  etc. 

T.  Carlyle — Critical  and  Miscellaneous  Essays.    7  vols.     1889. 

Sir  W.  Stirling-Maxwell — The  Cloister  Life  of  the  Emperor 
Charles  V.     3rd  ed.      1853. 

William  H.  Prescott — History  of  the  Conquest  of  Peru.  Ed. 
1905. 

Memoirs  of  Benvenuto  Cellini.  Written  by  Himself.  Trans, 
by  Thomas  Roscoe.     Ed.  1822-23. 

Clements  R.  Markham — Life  of  Christopher  Columbus.     1892. 

Henry  Harrisse — Christophe  Colombe,  son  origine,  sa  vie,  ses 
voyages,  sa  famille,  et  ses  descendants.     2  tomes.      1884. 

Justin  Winsor — Christopher  Columbus,  and  how  he  received 
and  imparted  the  spirit  of  Discovery.     1893. 

Hakluyt  Society,  vol.  ii.  (1847);  vol.  xliii.  (1870);  vol.  Ixxxvi. 

(1893). 
Bishop  Stubbs — Seventeen  Lectures  on  the  Sttidy  of  Medieval 

and  Modern  History.     3rd  ed.       1900. 

T.  E.  Bridgett — Life  and  Writings  of  Sir  Thomas  More.     1891. 
— Life  of  Blessed  John  Fisher.     1888. 


374  PRINCIPAL  AUTHORITIES 

William  Roper — Life  and  Death  of  Sir  Thomas  More.  Ed. 
S.  W.  Singer.     1822. 

Paul  Friedmann — Anne  Boleyn.     2  vols.     1884. 

James  Gairdner — Letters  and  Papers.     Vols,  vii.,  ix. 

J.  M.  N.  D.  Nisard — Renaissance  el  Rcforme.     3rd  ed.      1877. 

F.  Seebohm — The  0.x ford  Reformers  of  14QS.      1867. 

Giovanni  Pico  della  Mirandola,  his  Life  ;  by  G.  F.  Pico.  Also 
three  of  his  Letters,  and  his  interpretation  of  Psalm  XV L 
Trans,  by  Sir  T.  More.     Ed.  J.  M.  Rigg.      1890. 

Erasmi  Epistolce.     Ed.  Leyden. 

Early  English  Text  Society  (Extra  Series,  XXVII.) — Treatyse 
concernynge  .  .  .  the  seuen  Penytencyall  Psalmes.  Em- 
prynted  by  Wynkyn  de  Worde,  12  luyn,  m.ccccc.ix. 
(English  Works  of  John  Fisher.  Part  I.  Ed.  J.  E.  B. 
Mayor.      1876.) 

Lord  Acton — Wolsey  and  the  Divorce  of  Henry  VIIL  {Quar- 
terly Review  for  January  1877.) 

A.  WoLTMANN — Holbein  and  his  Time.  Trans.  F.  E.  Bunnett. 
1872. 

J.  M.  Stone — Faithful  unto  Death.  An  Account  of  the  Sufferings 
of  the  English  Franciscans  during  the  i6th  and  lyth  Cen- 
turies.    1892. 

J.  A.  Froude — History  of  England.     Ed.  1856. 

Life  and  Letters  of  St.  Francis  Xavier.  Ed.  Henry  James 
Coleridge.     New  ed.     2  vols.      1886. 

[See  also  my  article  on  "  St.  Francis  Xavier  "  in  the 
Church  Quarterly  Review  for  April  1889  (vol.  xxviii. 
p.  160),  and  the  authorities  there  cited.] 

Mrs.  G.  Cunninghame  Graham — Santa   Teresa,  etc.     2  vols. 

1894. 
Life  and  Letters  of  St.  Teresa.     Ed.  Henry  James  Coleridge. 

3  vols.      188 1. 

Parker  Society — Later  Writings  of  Bishop  Hooper.  Ed.  C. 
Nevinson.      1852. 

John  Foxe — Acts  and  Monuments.  Vol.  vii.  (Ed.  Peatt  and 
Stoughton  ;    8  vols.)      1877. 

John  Bayley — History  and  Antiquities  of  the  Toiver  of  London. 
2nd  ed.     1830. 

Robert  Southwell — Complete  Poems.  Ed.  A.  B.  Grosart. 
1 87 2.     {Fuller's  Worthies  Library.) 


APPENDIX  A  375 


Chapter  VI.   (pages  146-177). 

Dictionary  of  Hymnology.  Ed.  John  Julian.  See  "  Old 
Version";  "Psalters,  English";  "Psalters,  French"; 
-'  Scottish  Hymnody  "  ;    "  German  Hymnody." 

C.  E.  P.  Wackernagel — Das  deutsche  Kirchenlied  von  der 
(iltesten  Zeit,  etc.     Leipzig,  5  Bde.      1864-67. 

Catharine  Winkworth — Chorale  Book  for  England.  1863. 
Nos.  40,  loi,  149. 

Christian  Singers  of  Germany.  1869. 

Lyra  Germanica.     2nd  Series.  1858. 

FiLix  BovET — Histoire  du  Psautier  dcs  Eglises  Reformees.    1 872. 

E.  O.   DouEN — Clement  Marot  et  le  Psautier  Huguenot,  etc. 
2  tomes.      1878. 
Histoire    ecclesiastique    des    Eglises    Reformees  dti  royaume 
de  France.     Tome  I.     (Wrongly  attributed  to  Beza.)      3 
tomes.      1841-42. 

Thomas  Sternhold — Certayne  Psalmes,  chose  out  of  the  Psalter 
of  David  and  dr awe  into  Englishe  metre  by  Thomas  Sternhold, 
grome  of  ye  Kyng's  Maiestie's  roobes.     n.d. 

A I  such  Psalmes  of  David  as  Thomas  Sternholde,  late  grome  of 
the  Kynge's  Maiestie's  roobes,  did  in  his  lyfe  tyme  drawe  into 
English  metre.     (1549.) 

Psalmes  of  David  in  Metre,  drawen  into  Englishe  Metre  by 
M.  Sterneholde.  Imprinted  in  London  in  Flete  Strete  at 
the  signe  of  the  Sunne  over  against  the  conduit  by  Edward 
Whitchurche,  the  xxii  day  of  June,  anno  dom.  155 i. 

One  and  fiftie  Psalmes  of  Dauid  in  Englishe  Metre,  whereof  jy 
were  made  by  Thomas  Sternholde,  dd  the  rest  by  others,  etc. 
1556. 

The  whole  Book  of  Psalmes,  collected  into  English  metre  by 
T.  Sternhold,  John  Hopkins  and  others  ;  conferred  with  the 
Ebrue,  with  apt  notes  to  sing  them  withal,  etc.  John  Daye. 
1562. 

A  New  Version  of  the  Psalmes  of  David,  Fitted  to  the  Tunes 
used  in  Churches,  by  N.  Tate  and  N.  Brady.      1696. 

J.  Strype — The  Life  and  Acts  of  Matthew  Parker  .  .  .  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury.      177  \- 

Ane  Copendious  buik  of  godlie  Psalmes  and  Spiritiiall  Sangis. 
1578. 

The  Forme  of  Prayers  and  Ministration  of  the  Sacrament,  etc., 
whereunto  are  also  added  sondrie  other  prayers,  with  the 
whole  Psalmes  of  Dauid  in  English  Meter.  Printed  at 
Edinburgh  by  Robert  Lekprevik,  mdlxiiii. 


376  PRINCIPAL  AUTHORITIES 

The  Psalmes  of  King  David,  translated  by  King  James.  Oxford, 
1631. 

The  Psalmes  of  David  in  Meter.  Newly  translated  and  diligently 
compared  with  the  Original  Text  and  former  Translations  : 
More  plain,  smooth,  and  agreeable  to  the  Text  than  any  here- 
tofore. Allowed  by  the  Authority  of  the  General  Assembly  of 
the  Kirk  of  Scotland,  and  appointed  to  be  sung  in  Con- 
gregations and  Families.     Edinburgh,  1650. 

T.  Warton — History  of  English  Poetry.  Vol.  iv.  Ed.  Hazlitt. 
4  vols.      1 87 1. 

The  Chronicle  of  Queen  Jane,  etc.  (Camden  Society,  Old 
Series.     No.  48.) 

John  Lothrop  Motley — The  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic.  New 
edition.     3  vols.     Ed.  Moncure  D.  Conway.      1896. 

Accounts  and  Papers  relating  to  Mary  Queen  of  Scots.  (Camden 
Society,  Old  Series.     No.  93.) 

J.  A.  Froude. — History  of  England.     Vols.  viii.  and  ix. 

J.  Skelton — Mary  Stuart.     1893. 

J.  HosACK — Mary  Queen  of  Scots  and  her  Accusers.  2nd  ed. 
2  vols.      1870-74. 

Andrew  Lang — The  Mystery  of  Mary  Stuart.      1901. 

Hon.  M.  M.  Maxwell  Scott — The  Tragedy  of  Fotheringay,  etc. 

1895. 
Lucy  Aikin — Memoirs  of  the  Court  of  Queen  Elizabeth.     2  vols. 

Ed.  1818. 

John  Holland — Psalmists  of  Britain.      1843. 

H.  A.  Glass — The  Story  of  the  Psalters,  etc.     1888. 

Philip  Jones — A  true  Report  of  a  worthy  fight,  performed  in  the 
voyage  from  Turkic,  by  fiue  ships  of  London,  against  // 
Gallies  and  two  Frigats  of  the  King  of  Spaines,  at  Pantalarea 
within  the  streights.     Anno  1586. 

[See  p.  285  of  the  second  volume  of  the  Principall 
Navigations,  Voyages,  Traffiqties  and  Discoveries  of 
the  English  Nation  ...  by  Richard  Hakluyt.      1 599.] 

The  Casting  away  of  the  -'-  Tobie  "  neere  Cape  Espartel,  corruptly 
called  Cape  Sprat,  ivithout  the  straight  of  Gibraltar  on  the 
Coast  of  Barbaric,  1593. 

[See  p.  201  of  the  Second  Part  of  the  second  volume  of 
Llakluyt's  Principall  Navigations,  as  above.] 

James  Spedding — An  Account  of  the  Life  and  Times  of  Bacon. 
1878. 


APPENDIX  A  377 

William  Stebbing — Sir  Walter  Ralegh.     (Re-issue,  1899.) 
John  RusKiN — Bibliotheca  Pastorum.     Vol.  ii.  (1877).     "Rock 

Honeycomb." 
C.  W.  Le  Bxs—The  Life  of  Bishop  Jewel.     1832. 
I.  Walton — The  Lives  of  .  .  .  Mr.  Richard  Hooker,  Mr.  George 

Herbert,  etc.     Ed.  1866. 
G.  Herbert — Works.     2  vols.     Ed.  1844. 
Richard  Hooker — Ecclesiastical  Polity. 


Chapters  VII.  and  VIII.   (pages  178-222). 

F.  Bovet — Histoire  du  Psautier  des  ^glises  Reformees.      1872. 

E.  O.  DouEN — Clement  Marot  et  le  Psautier  Huguenot,  etc. 

2  tomes.      1878-9. 

H.  L.  Bordier — Le  Chansonnier  Huguenot  du  X  VP  Siecle.  1 870. 

A.  CoQUEREL,  FiLS — Les  Formats  pour  la  Foi.     Etude  historique 
(1684-1775).      1866. 

A.  Court — Histoire  des  troubles  des  Cevennes,  ou  de  la  Guerre 
des  Caniisards,  etc.     Nouvelle  ed.     3  tomes.      18 19. 

Florimond  de  R6mond — Histoire  de  la  naissance,  progrez,  et 
decadence  de  I'heresie  de  ce  Siecle.     Rouen.      1623. 

J.  Crespin — Histoire  des  Martyrs.     1582. 

F.  Strada — De  bello  Belgico. 

N.  A.  F.  PuAux — Histoire  de  la  Reformation  frangaise.     1857. 

A.  Crottet — Petit  Chronique  Protestante  de  France,  etc.      16""^ 
Siecle.      1846. 

G.  von  Polenz — Geschichte  des  franzosischen  Calvinismus  bis 

zur  N ationalversammlung.     5  Bde.     1787. 

E.  Benoist — Histoire  de  I'edit  de  Nantes.     1693-5.     3  tomes. 

F.  de  La  Noue — Discours  politiques  et  miliiaires.     1587. 

F.   Leguat — Voyages  et  Avantures.     2   tomes.      1708.     (And 
see  Hakluyt  Society.     1891.) 

H.  Morley — Life  of  Palissy.     2  vols.      1852. 

Louis  Palaysi — Bernard  Palissy  et  les  debuts  de  la  Reforme  en 
Saintogne.     1899. 

Aulcuns  Pseaulmes  et  Cantiques  mys  en  Chant.     A  Strasburg. 

^539- 

[Calvin's  translations  were  Pss.  xxv.,  xxxvi.,  xlvi.,  xci., 
cxxxviii.] 


378  PRINCIPAL  AUTHORITIES 

hes  cinqiiante  psanmes  de  Marot,  suivis  de  la  littirgie  et  du 
caUchisme  et  pric6des  de  la  preface  de  Calvin,  du  lo  Juin, 
1543.     Geneve,  1543. 

[Sec  Bovet,  Hist,  du  Psaufier.  Bibliographic,  i'^'"*' 
Partie,  Nos.  5,  6.] 

Paul  Henry,  D.D. — The  Life  and  Times  of  John  Calvin,  the 
Great  Reformer.     Trans.  H.  Stebbing.     2  vols.      1899. 

T.  H.  Dyer — The  Life  of  John  Calvin.     1850. 

Beza — Vie  de  J.  Calvin  par  Theodore  de  Beze.  Nouvelle  ed. 
publiee  et  annotee  par  Alfred  Franklin.      1869. 

Les  Censures  des  thSologiens  de  Paris  par  lesquelles  ils  aiioyent 
faulsement  condamne  les  Bibles  imprimees  par  Robert 
Estienne  .   .  .  auec  la  response  d'iceluy.      1552. 

Bulletin  de  la  Societe  d'histoire  du  Protestantisme.     Tome  iii. 

Jean  de  Serres — Inventaire  General  de  I'histoire  de  France. 
Ed.  1647. 

F.  A.  Gasquet — Henry  VIIL  and  the  English  Monasteries.  2 
vols.      1888. 

Lady  Georgian  a  Fullerton— Lz/e  of  Luisa  de  Carvajal.    1S73. 
[For  Coligny,  see  my  article  on  "  Gaspard  de  Coligny  "  in 
the  Church  Quarterly  Review  for  January  1891   (vol. 
xxxi.,  p.  361),  and  the  authorities  there  cited.] 

T.  A.  D'AuBiGNE — Histoire  Universelle.      1616-20. 

Angliviel  de  la  Baumelle — Memoires  pour  servir  a  I'histoire 
de  Madame  de  Maintenon.  1755.  (Letter  of  Madame 
d'Aubigne.)  Also  quoted  by  Puaux,  Hist,  de  la  Reformation 
Fran^aise.  Tome  V.,  and  in  P.  de  Noailles.  Hist,  de 
Madame  de  Maintenon.     Tome  I.,  chap.  ii. 

[For  Henri  de  Rohan,  and  the  Siege  of  La  Rochelle,  see 
my  Article  on  "  Henri  de  Rohan  and  the  Huguenot 
Wars  "  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  for  April  1890  (vol. 
clxxi.,  p.  389),  and  the  authorities  there  cited.] 

Montaigne — Essais.     Liv.  I.  ch.  Ivi.  (des  Prieres). 

Phil.  Desportes — Les  CL.  Psaiimes  mis  en  vers  fran^ais.    1 598, 

Jean  Metezeau — Les  CL.  Pseauines  mis  en  vers  fran^ais,  etc. 
1610. 

Michel  de  Marillac — Les  CL.  Pseaumes  de  David,  etc. 
Traduits  en  vers  fran^ais.      1625. 

Ant.  Godeau — Paraphrase  des  Pseaumes  de  David  en  vers 
franqais.      1648. 

R.  F.  Wilson — Life  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul.     1873. 


APPENDIX  A  379 

H.  Heine — Werke.  Ed.  Hoffmann  und  Campe.  Romanzero  ; 
Hebraische  Melodien.     Letter  to  Moser,  23rd  May  1823. 

Bishop  J.  P.  Camus — Esprit  de  St.  Francois  de  Sales.  Noii- 
velle  ed.     3  tomes.      1840. 

S.  Francis  de  Sales,  Bishop  and  Prince  of  Geneva.  1882. 
("  Christian  Biographies."     Ed.  H.  L.  Sidney  Lear.) 

MSmoire  veritable  du  prix  excessive  des  vivres  de  la  Rochelle 
pendant  le  siege.      1628. 

[See  E.  Fournier,  Varietes  hisioriques,  etc.      1855-63.] 

Memoir es  pour  servir  a  I'histoire  de  Port  Royal,  et  a  la  vie  de  la 
Reverende  mere  Marie  Angelique  de  Sainte  Magdeleine 
Arnauld.     3  tomes.     Utrecht,  1742. 

Histoire  des  Persecutions  de  Religieuses  de  Port  Royal  ecrites  par 
elles  memes.  (Relation  de  ce  qui  s'est  passe  a  Port  Royal 
en  166 1.) 

Chapitre  xxii.     Ville-Franche,  1753. 

Emile  Boutroux — Pascal.     (Les  grands  ecrivains  frangais.) 

A.  MoNASTiER — Histoire  del' EgliseVattdoise.     2  tomes.      1847. 

B.  MusTON — L' Israel  des  Alpes.     4  tomes.      1851. 

Charles  Coquerel — Histoire  des  Eglises  du  Desert,  etc.  2 
tomes,  1 84 1.     Tome  II. 

N.  Peyrat — Histoire  des  Pasteurs  du  desert.     2  tomes.      1842. 

Theatre  Sacre  des  Cevennes  (quoted  by  Douen,  Clement  Marot, 
etc.     Tome  I.,  p.  25). 


Chapter  IX.  (pages  223-251). 

Edward  Arber — The  Story  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  etc.      1897. 

Edward  Johnson — Wonder-working  Providence  of  Sion's 
Saviour  :  being  a  relation  of  the  First  Planting  of  New 
England  in  the  Year  1628.  Part  III.  of  Sir  Ferdinando 
Gorge's  America  Painted  to  the  Life.     1659. 

The  Works  of  Benjamin  Franklin.  Ed.  Jared  Sparks.  10  vols. 
1840. 

The  Works  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  D.D.     Ed.  Heber.     15  vols.     1822. 

IzAAK  Walton — The  Life  of  Dr.  Robert  Sanderson.     1678. 

The  Letters  and  Journals  of  Robert  Baillie,  A  .M.  Edited  for  the 
Bannatyne  Chib  by  David  Laing,  vol.  i.     3  vols.      1841-42. 

Walter  Farquhar  Hook — Lives  of  the  Archbishops  of  Canter- 
bury.    Laud.     (New  Seiues,  vol.  vi.)      1875. 


38o  PRINCIPAL  AUTHORITIES 

Sir  Henry  Slingsey — Original  Memoirs  written  during  the 
Great  Civil  War.     Ed.  Sir  W.  Scott.      1S06. 

Clarendon,  Earl  of — History  of  the  Rebellion  and  Civil  Wars 
in  England.     8  vols.      1826. 

John  Milton — Works.     "  Globe  "  Edition.     1877. 

John  Bunyan — Grace  Abounding  to  the  Chief  of  Sinners,  etc. 
1666. 

Thomas    Carlyle — Oliver    Cromwell's    Letters    and    Speeches. 
Copyright  Edition.     5  vols.      1888. 


Chapter  X,   (pages  252-285). 

Patrick  Walker — Six  Saints  of  the  Covenant.     Ed.  D.  May- 
Fleming.     With  a  "  Foreword  "  by  S.  R.  Crockett.      1901. 

John  Knox — The  History  of  the  Reformation  of  Religion  within 
the  Realm  of  Scotland.     Ed.  Charles  John  Guthrie.      1898. 

A  Compendious  Book  of  Godly  and  Spiritual  Songs.  Ed.  A.  F. 
Mitchell,  D.D.      1897. 

John  Howie — Biographia  Scoticana.     Ed.  1796. 

Lady  Murray  of  Stanhope — Memoirs  of  the  Lives  and  Charac- 
ters of  George  Baillie  of  Jerviswood,  and  of  Lady  Grizell 
Baillie.     By  their  daughter.      1822. 

Autobiography,  and  Diary  of  Mr.  James  Melvill.  Edited  for 
the  Wodrow  Society.     1842. 

James  Dodds — The  Fifty  Years'  Struggle  of  the  Scottish 
Covenanters,      i860. 

Robert  Wodrow — The  History  of  the  Sufferings  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland,  etc.     Ed.  Rev.  R.  Burns.     4  vols.      1828-30. 

Andrew  Crichton — Memoirs  of  the  Rev.  John  Blackader.   1823. 

A  Cloud  of  Witnesses  for  the  Royal  Prerogative  of  Jesus  Christ, 
etc.     Ed.  J.  H.  Thomson.      1871. 

Joseph  M'Cormick — Life  of  Mr.  Car  stares.  (Prefixed  to 
State  Papers  and  letters  addressed  to  William  Carstares, 
etc.)     Ed.  1774. 

The  Siege  of  Londonderry  in  1689 ;  as  set  forth  in  the  Literary 
Remains  of  Col.  the  Rev.  George  Walker,  D.D.  Ed.  Rev 
Philip  Dwyer.      1893. 


APPENDIX  A  381 


Chapter  XI    (pages  286-322). 

Edinburgh  Review.     "  Jacobite  Songs."     Jan.  1904. 

William  Orme — Life  of  Richard  Baxter.  (Prefixed  to  his 
Works.     Ed.  1830.) 

[See  also  my  Articles  on  "  Alexander  Pope  "  and 
"  Courthope's  Life  of  Pope  "  in  the  Edinburgh  Review 
for  October  1884  (vol.  clx.,  p.  295),  and  the  Quarterly 
Review  for  October  1889  (vol.  clxix.,  p.  247)]. 

William  Law — A  Serious  Call  to  a  Devout  and  Holy  Life,  etc., 
1729. 

Edward  Gibbon — Autobiographies.     Ed.  John  Murray.    1896 

[John  Wesley] — Colleciijn  of  Psalms  and  Hymns.  (Charles 
Town.  Printed  by  Lewis  Timothy,  1737.)  A  facsimile 
reprint  was  published,  with  a  Preface  by  Dr.  Osborn,  in 
London  in  1882. 

Charles  Wesley — The  Poetical  Works  of  John  and  Charles 
Wesley,  etc.  Collected  and  Arranged  by  George  Osborn. 
13  vols.      1S68-72. 

John  Wesley — Journal.     4  vols.      1827. 

Luke  Tyerman — Life  of  George  Whitefield.     2  vols.      1876-7. 

Prince  Hoare — Memoirs  of  Granville  Sharp.  2nd  ed.  2  vols. 
1828. 

Life  of  William  Wilberforce.     By  his  Sons.     2nd  ed.      1843. 

John  Keble — -The  Christian  Year.      1828. 

The  Psalter,  or  Psalms  of  David,  in  English  Verse,  by  a  Member 
of  the  University  of  Oxford.     1839. 

E.  S.  Purcell — -Life  of  Cardinal  Manning.     2  vols.      1896. 

J.  H.  Newman — Verses  on  Various  Occasions  :  "  The  Dream  of 
Gerontius."     New  ed.     1893. 

Letters  and  Correspondence.     Ed.  Anne  Mozley.     2  vols. 

Dean  Stanley — Life  and  Correspondence  of  Thomas  Arnold, 
D.D.     2  vols.      1846. 

Charles  Kingsley  ;  his  Letters  and  Memories  of  his  Life.  Edited 
by  his  Wife.     2  vols.     Ed.  1877. 

Robert  Buchanan — The  Ten  Years'  Conflict,  being  the  History 
of  the  Disruption  of  the  Church  of  Scotland.     2  vols.      1849. 

W.  Hanna — Memoirs  of  the  Life  and  Writings  of  Thomas 
Chalmers,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  4  vols.      1849-53. 

Mrs.  Oliphant — The  Life  of  Edward  Irving.     4th  ed.     1865. 


382  PRINCIPAL  AUTHORITIES 

H.  R.  Fox  Bourne — The  Life  of  John  Locke.     2  vols.      1876. 

F.  H.  Alexander  von  Humboldt — Cosmos.     Trans.  Colonel 
Sabine.     2nd  ed.     1846-58. 

Joseph  de  Maistre — Les  Soirees  de  St.  Petersbourg.     1821. 

John  Veitch — Memoir  of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  Bart.     1869. 

John  Duns — Memoir  of  Sir  James  Y.  Simpson,  Bart.      i8y$. 

F.  H.  W.  Myers — Fragments  of  Prose  and  Poetry.      Ed.  by 
his  Wife,  Evelecn  Myers.      1904. 

The  Life  and  Letters  of  George  John  Romanes.     By  his  Wife. 

1896. 
Robert  Southey — Life  of  William  Cowper.     (Prefixed  to  his 

Works.)     Ed.  1836. 

John  Gibson  Lockhart — Memoirs  of  the  Life  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  Bart.     10  vols.      1839. 

Mrs.  Garden — Memorials  of  James  Hogg.     1887. 

John  Glyde — The  Life  of  Edward  Fitzgerald,  with  an  Intro- 
duction by  Edward  Clodd.     1900. 

Letters  and  Literary  Remains  of  Edward  Fitzgerald.    Ed.  William 
Aldis  Wright.     3  vols.      1889. 

Thomas  Carlyle — On  Heroes,  Hero-worship,  and  the  Heroic  in 
History.     (See  Lectures  II.  and  V.)     Ed.  1891. 

John  Ruskin — Prcsterita.     Vol.  i. 

Our  Fathers  have  told  Us.     Chap.  iii. 
Modern  Painters.     Part  vii.,  Chap.  iv. 

Chapter  XII.  (pages  323-364). 

James  Baldwin  Brown — Memoirs  of  the  Public  and  Private 
Life  of  John  Howard.     18 18. 

John  Howard — An  Account  of  the  Principal  Lazarettos  in 
Europe,  etc.      1789. 

CoNVERS  Francis — Life  of  John  Eliot.     {Library  of  American 
Biography,  ed.  J.  Sparks,  vol.  v.,  1836.) 

Jonathan  Edwards  the  Elder — An  Account  of  the  Life  of 
David    Brainerd  .  .  .  chiefly  .  .  .  from    his    own    Diary. 
1749. 
George  Smith — The  Life  of  William  Carey,  D.D.,  Shoemaker 
and  Missionary.      1885. 
The  Life  of  A  Icxander  Duff.     2  vols.      1 879. 

Journals  and  Letters  of  Henry  Martyn.     Ed.  S.  Wilbcrforce. 
2  vols.     1837. 


APPENDIX  A  383 

Rev.  John  Sargent — Memoir  of  the  Life  of  Henry  Martyn. 

1819. 
Rev.  J.  W.  Marsh — A  Memoir  of  A.  F.  Gardiner.     1857. 

William    Garden    Blaikie — The    Personal    Life    of    David 
Livingstone.     1880. 

The  Last  Journals  of  David  Livingstone.     Ed.   H.   Waller. 
2  vols.     1874. 

E.   C.   Dawson— /ames  Hannington,   first  Bishop  of  Eastern 
Equatorial  Africa.      1887. 
Autobiography  of  Alexander  Carlyle.      i860. 

Philip  Doddridge — Some  Remarkable  Passages  in  the  Life  of 
.   .   .   Col.  Gardiner.      1747. 

James  Anthony  Froude — Life  of  Thomas  Carlyle  :   a  History 
of  his  Life,  vol.  ii.     4  vols.     1884. 

Letters  and  Memorials  of  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle.     3  vols.     1883- 

Lord  Morley — Life  of  William  Ewart  Gladstone.     3  vols. 

Complete  Works  of  Abraham  Lincoln.     2  vols. 

W.  M.  Thayer — From  Log  Cabin  to  White  House. 

W.  R.  Balch — Life  of  James  A .  Garfield. 

Honore  de  Balzac — Les  Chouans  ;    on  la  Bretagne  en  1799. 
2nd  ed.      1834. 

Louise  H.  C.  P.  de  Durfort,  Duchesse  de  Duras — Journal 
des  Prisons  de  mon  pere,  de  ma  mere  et  des  miennes.     1888. 

Autobiography  of  Lt.-Gen.  Sir  Harry  Smith.     Ed.  by  G.  Moore 
Smith.     2  vols.     1901. 

Maxime  du  Camp — Souvenirs  Litteraires.     2  tomes. 

Memoirs  of  Dr.  Thomas  W.  Evans  ;   Recollections  of  the  Second 
Empire.     2  vols.      1905. 

Captain  John  Grover — An  Appeal  to  the  British  Nation  in 

behalf  of  Col.  Stoddart  and    Capt. 
Conolly,  now  in  Captivity  in  Bok- 
hara.   1843. 
— The  Bokhara  Victims.     2nd  ed.   1845. 

John  William  Kaye — Lives  of  Indian  Officers.     2  vols.      1867. 

John  Clark  Marshman — Memoirs  of  Major-General  Sir  H. 
Havelock.     i860. 

William  Edwards — Personal  Adventures  during  the  Indian 
Rebellion,  etc.     1858. 

W.Forbes  Mitchell — Reminiscences  of  the  Great  Mutiny.  1895. 

Paul  Kruger — Memoirs,  told  by  Himself.     2  vols.      1902. 


APPENDIX    B 


INDEX  TO  THE  USE  OF  PARTICULAR  PSALMS 


In  this  index  the  historical  instances  of  the  use  of  the  Psalter,  which 
in  the  text  are  given  chronologically,  are  arranged  nnder  the  particu- 
lar Psalms  to  which  they  refer. 


Psalms  i.-viii. — Milton,  235. 
Psalm  i. — Byron,  314  ;   Ruskin, 
321. 
V.  2.   Jerome,  26. 
4.   Boswell,  312. 
16.   Origen,  20. 
Psalm  ii. — Luther,  125. 
Psalm  hi. — English  nation,  167, 
168  ;  the  Huguenots,  180. 
V.  5,  6.   Duff    (Indian   Mutiny), 

357- 

8.  St.  Patrick,  50. 
Psalm  iv. — Luther,  123. 

V.  I.  Augustine,  37. 
2.  Augustine,  38. 
7.   James       Melville,       257  ; 
James  Gardiner,  345. 

9.  Gorgonia,      16  ;      Luther, 

16,  124;  Langland,  no; 
Ridley,  142. 
Psalm  V. — v.  7.  Louis  ix.,  loi. 
Psalm  vl — Becket,    80  ;    Bishop 
Hooper,    141  ;    Marot's   ver- 
sion,   146  n.  ;     Catherine   de 
Medicis,  179. 
V.  I.   Florin  of  Edward  iii.,   4. 

2.  Maine  de  Biran,  307. 
2-4.   Jane     Welsh      Carlyle, 

346. 

3.  Calvin,  1S3. 

().   Langland,  no  ;  St.  Fran- 
9ois  de  Sales,  204. 


Psalm  viii. — Ruskin,  321. 
y.  I,  2.  Chaucer,  109. 

2.  Martin  of  Tours,  29. 

4.  Bernard  Palissy,  182. 

5.  Earl  of  Arundel,  143. 

6.  7.     Butchers'    Company, 

3.  4- 
Psalm      ix.  —  v.      10.      Dante, 
106. 

12.  Archbishop  Laud,  233. 
Psalm  x. — Henry  Martyn,  334. 
Psalm       xi. — Mary,      Queen     of 

Scots,  166. 
Psalm    xii. — Luther,    147  ;    The 

Tobie,  170  ;  Ruskin,  321. 
Psalm  xiii. — v.  i.  Calvin,  183. 

3.  Saracen,  apud  Gregory  of 

Decapolis,  13. 
Psalm     xiv. — Queen    Elizabeth, 
161  ;     Ruskin,    321  ;     Henry 
Martyn,  335. 
V.  I.  Bacon,  171. 
2.   Baldwin,  85. 
Psalm  xv. — Ruskin,  321  ;  Henrj' 
Martyn,  335. 
V.  1.  Langland,  109. 
6.  Langland,  109. 
Psalm  xvi. — Jean  Rousseau  and 
Duchess    of    Orleans,     185  ; 
-    Hugh   M'Kail,    263  ;     Henry 

Martyn,  335. 
V.  4.  Wilham  Carey,  330. 


384 


APPENDIX  B 


385 


Psalm    xvi. — v.    7.     Beauchamp 
family  motto,  3. 

12.  James  Melville,  257. 
Psalm  xvii. — John  Gibson,  276. 

V.  5.   John  Howard,  324. 
16.   Julius   Hare,   298  ;     John 
Howard,  325. 
Psalm     xviii.  —  v.     10.     Shake- 
speare, 173. 

11.  Garfield,  349. 

18.   Shakespeare,  174. 
25-27.   Rev.    George   Walker, 
283. 

28.  James  Melville,  257. 

29.  Mause  Headrigg,  262. 
39,  40.  Clovis,  73. 

Psalm      xix.- — Joseph    Addison, 
310  ;    Ruskin,  321. 
V.  5.  Shakespeare,  174;  Milton, 
236. 
9.  Lincoln,  348. 

13.  Bunyan,  239,  240. 
Psalm  xx.- — Gwynlliu  and  Cadoc, 

61  ;   Sir  James  Simpson,  308. 
V.  7.      Antony,     23  ;      Patrick, 
50  ;   Adelme,  of  Chaise- 
Dieu,  86. 
9.  National  Anthem,  3. 
Psalm  xxi. — Henry  of  Navarre, 
194. 
V.  I,  2,  4.  Frederick  Myers,  309. 
Psalm      xxii. — Bishop    Hooper, 
141. 
V.  I.   Richard  i.,  85. 

12.  Shakespeare,  172. 
21.   Royal  supporters,  3. 
27.   Henry  Martyn,  334. 

Psalm  xxiii. — Chosen  by  Au- 
gustine as  the  hymn  of 
martyrs,  12  ;  Bishop  Hooper, 
141  ;  Shakespeare,  174  ; 
George  Herbert,  176  ;  Isabel 
Alison  and  Marion  Harvie, 
276  ;  Edward  Irving,  303  ; 
Joseph  Addison,  310  ;  Byron, 
314  ;  Ruskin,  320,  321. 
V.  I.  Neander,  299. 

4.  Cromwell,  251  ;  James 
Melville,  257 ;  Sir  William 
Hamilton,  308  ;  John 
Howard,  324 ;  Alexander 
Duff,  337. 


Psalm  xxiii. — v.  5.  Gladstone,  347. 

6.  Benedictine      Rule,      64  ; 

father        of         Richard 

Cameron,  268. 

Psalm  xxiv. — Legends  of  South- 

West  France,  iii  ;    Ruskin, 

321. 

V.  I.   Great  Exhibition  of  1851, 

4- 

7.  Laird  of  Langcale,  262. 
7-10.   Langland,    iii  ;     The 

Golden      Legend,       112  ; 
Milton,  235. 

8.  Alfred,  Neot,  70. 
Psalm    xxv. — Margaret    Wilson, 

278. 
V.  I.  Louis  IX.,  100. 

6.   Pico  della  Mirandola,  131. 

13.  William  Edwards  (Indian 

Mutiny),  359. 

14.  Fran9ois  de  Sales,  205. 
16.  William      Edwards      (In- 
dian Mutiny),  359. 

Psalm  xxvi. — v.  2.  Abelard,  100. 

8.  Paula,     127  ;      Hugh     of 

Cluni,  66. 
10.   Langland,  109. 
Psalm      xxvii.  —  Rev.      George 
Walker,  283  ;  G.  J.  Romanes, 
310  ;       James     Hannington, 

343- 
V.  I.  Oxford      University,      4; 
Savonarola,   122  ;  Fran- 
9ois      de      Sales,      204  ; 
James  Melville,  257. 

9.  Gregory  the  Great,  63. 
14-16.  William  Edwards  (In- 
dian Mutiny),  359. 

14.  Allen  Gardiner,  339. 
16.  Lady  Jane  Grey,  155. 
Psalm    xxviii. — v.    1.    Albertus 
Magnus,      102  ;      James 
Hannington,  343. 
V.  8.  Coins  of  Black  Prince,  4. 
Psalm  xxix. — v.  8.  George  Her- 
bert, 176. 
Psalm    xxx.  —  Bishop    Hooper, 
141  ;  James  Hannington,  343. 
Psalm    xxxi.— John    Hus,    118  ; 
Savonarola,    121,    122,    123  ; 
Charles  v.,  126,  129  ;  Fisher, 
135  ;  Bishop  Hooper,  141. 


386       INDEX  OF  PARTICULAR  PSALMS 


Psalm  xxxi. — v.  i  .MdrcAngelique, 
2IO  ;  Xavier,  138. 
1-9.  Dante,  108. 

6.  Our  Saviour,  6  ;   Stephen, 

6  ;  Basil,  17  ;  Charle- 
magne, 75  ;  Becket, 
79  ;  Hus,  118,  129  ; 
Jerome  of  Prague,  118  ; 
Luther,  123,  129  ; 
Melancthon,  123  ;  Tasso, 
129  ;  Columbus,  129  ; 
Charles  v.,  127  ;  Fisher, 
135,  142  ;  John  Hough- 
ton, 136;  Thomas  Crom- 
well, 142  ;  Hooper, 
142  ;  Ridley,  142  ; 
Robert  Southwell,  145  ; 
Egmont,  160  ;  Horn, 
160  ;  George  Herbert, 
176  ;  Wishart,  254  ; 
John  Knox,  254  ;  Hugh 
M'Kail,  263  ;  James 
Renwick,  275  ;  New- 
man —  Gerontius,  ■zg'j  ; 
Henry  Martyn,  333  ; 
Madame     de     Noailles, 

SSI- 
Psalm    XXXII. — Augustine,     38  ; 
Ruskin,  320. 
V.  I.   Dante,     108  ;      Langland, 
no. 
2.   Izaak  Walton,  228. 

7,  8.  Alexander  Peden,  270. 
Psalm  xxxiii. — v.  1-2.  Empress 

Eugenie,  355. 
17,  18.  Madame  Prosni,  208. 
Psalm     xxxiv. — Wilham     Law, 

293- 
V.  I.  Theodore  the  Martyr,  13. 
5.   Fisher,  135. 

10.  Columba,  57  ;    Allen  Gar- 

diner, 339. 

11.  Baithen,  57. 

12-15. — Benedictine  Rule,  63. 

Psalm   xxxv. — v.    3.  Henry  vii., 

Thomas  a  Kempis,  102. 

10.  Thomas  a  Kempis,  104. 

23.  The  Armada,  86,  167,  180. 

Psalm   xxxvi. — v.   7.    Langland, 

no. 
Psalm  xxxvii. — v.  5.  David  Liv- 
ingstone, 341. 


Psalm    xxxvii.  —  v.    16.    Jeanie 
Deans  (Scott),  262. 
25.  Jeanie  Deans,  262  ;  Baillie 
of  Jerviswood,  273. 
xxxviii. — Bishop  Hooper, 


Psalm 

14 

V.  7. 

15- 
Psalm 

V.   I. 


10. 
Psalm 


5- 

6. 

21. 

Psalm 


Maine  de  Biran,  307. 
George  Herbert,  176. 
xxxix. — Ambrose,  38. 
Pambo,    24  ;    Benedictine 

Rule,  64. 
John  Keblc,  296. 
Shakespeare,  174. 
Calvin,  183. 

XL. — V.    I.     Fran9ois     de 
Sales,  205. 
Francis     of      Assisi,     94  ; 

Robert  Southwell,  143. 
Francois  de  Sales,  205. 
Cromwell,  250. 
Queen  Elizabeth,  161. 

XLii. — Daniel    M'Michael, 

275- 
V.  I.  Early       Christians,       12  ; 
George      Beisley,       143  ; 
Henry  11.,  179. 
2.  Fran9ois  de  Sales,  205. 

5.  Manning,  297. 

6.  Manning,  297. 

14.   Vladimir  Monomachus,  98  ; 
Jeanie  Deans,  262. 
Psalm  xliii. — Baptism  of  Augus- 
tine, 38  ;  Anthony  of  Navarre, 
179. 
V.  3.  Thomas  Chalmers,  300. 
5.  Luther,  123  ;  Jeanie  Deans, 
262. 
Psalm  xliv. — James  Melville,  255. 
V.  19-20.  Gladstone,  347. 
23.  Ambrose,  18. 
Psalm     xlv. — Coronation     Ser- 
vices, 3  ;  Phihp  Nicolai,  147; 
St.  Columba,  56. 
V.  8.  Gregory  vii.,  77. 
Psalm    xlvi. — Demetrius    of    the 
Don,    87,    180  ;     Luther   and 
Melancthon,       124  ;      Luther 
and    Thomas    Carlyle,     125  ; 
Luther,  147  ;  Cromwell,  243, 
250  ;      Napoleon     iii.,     353  ; 
Maxime       du     Camp,      354  ; 
Havelock,  356. 


APPENDIX  B 


387 


Psalm  xlvi. — v.  i.Turstinof  York, 
91. 
1-3.  Rev.  George  Walker,  282. 

4.  Bernard     and     Fountains 

Abbey,  92. 

5.  Cathedral    at    Kieff,     39  ; 

Mediaeval     cosmogony — 
The  Holy  City,  102. 

7.  John  Wesley,  294. 

7-11.  Rev.  George  Walker,282. 

8.  St.  Fran9ois  de  Sales,  204. 
10.  Vincent     of     Lerins,     65  ; 

Richard   Cameron,    267  ; 
James  Renwick,  275. 
Psalm   xlviii.  —  The   Camisards, 
218  ;    Ruskin,  321. 
i^.  13.  Shakespeare,  174. 
Psalm     xlix. — v.      i.     Gregory 
Nazianzen,  38. 
7.  Matthew  Arnold,  316. 
Psalm  l. — v.   10.    James    North- 
cote,  313. 

14.  Turstin  of  York,  91. 

16.  Origen,  20. 

Psalm  li. — Stephen  Langton,  81  ; 
Savonarola,  121,  122  ;  More, 
130,  133,  139  ;  Cellini,  128  ; 
Lady  Jane  Grey,  156  ;  Duke 
of  Suffolk,  157  ;  Egmont, 
160  ;  Wolfgang  Schuch,  188  ; 
Jacques  Roger,  220  ;  Fran- 
9ois  Benezet,  220  ;  Bunyan, 
238  ;  Wishart,  254. 
V.  I.  Neck-verse,  3. 

I,  2.  WilUam  Carey,  331. 
7.  Langland,     no  ;      Shake- 
speare, 173  ;  Henry  Mar- 
tyn,  334. 
10,   II.  Teresa,  139. 

12.  Thomas  Arnold,  298. 

13.  Savonarola  —  Michel    An- 

gelo's  picture,  122. 

15.  Brendan,  54. 

17.  Augustine,  36;   Langland, 

III  ;  Teresa,  139. 

18.  Henry  v.,  85. 

Psalm    lii. — Charles    i.    and    the 

Scottish  Camp,  235. 
Psalm  lv. — Darnley,  164. 

V.  6.   Jerome,  26  ;    Byron,  314  ; 
Taylor,  315  ;    Browning, 
323- 
26 


Psalm  lv. — v.  6,  7.  Benedictines 
at  York,  90. 

7.  Turstin  of  York,  91. 

8.  Fountains  Abbey,  91. 
15.  Hooker,  152. 

18.  Benedictine  Rule,  65. 
22.  Allen  Gardiner,  339. 
25.   Burghley,  170. 
Psalm  lvi. — Charles  i.,  235. 
Psalm  lvii. — v.  i.  Allen  Gardiner, 
339  ;     altar  at   Bourget, 
359- 
8.   Robert  Sanderson,  228. 
Psalm  lviii.- — v.   4.   Shakespeare, 

172  ;   Milton,  236. 
Psalm  lx. — St.  Cuthbert,  59. 
V.  1.  John  Houghton,  136. 
2.  Bishop  Hall,  226. 
II.   John  Howard,  332. 
Psalm  lxii. — Cellini,  128  ;  Bishop 
Hooper,  141. 
V.  I,  2.  Augustine,  35. 
5.   James  Gardiner,  344. 
5-8.  Allen  Gardiner,  339. 
Psalm  lxiii. — Beza,   184  ;    Chry- 
sostom,  184. 
V.  9.  Thomas  a  Kempis,  104. 
Psalm  lxxv. — Richard  Scrope,  82, 

91- 
Psalm  lxv. — v.  i.  Brendan,  54. 
V.  II.   Robert  Southwell,  144. 
12.   John  Wesley,  294. 
Psalm  lxvi. — v.  14.  Bunyan,  238. 

18.  Thomas  a  Kempis,  104. 
Psalm  lxvii. — Bourget,  354. 

V.  I.  Brendan,  54. 
Psalm      lxviii. — Antony,      23; 
Browning,  22  ;   Charlemagne, 
75  ;    Savonarola,    121  ;     The 
Huguenots,     183,     190,     195, 
208  ;    Beza,  183,   190  ;  Crom- 
well, 248  ;  Moscow,  352. 
V.  I.   National       Anthem,       3  ; 
Cromwell,     257  ;      Alex- 
ander Peden,  272  ;    Rev. 
George  Walker,  293. 

4.  Shakespeare,  173. 

5.  Shakespeare,    173  ;     Alex- 

ander     M'Robin,      275  ; 
WilUam     Edwards     (In- 
dian Mutiny),  359. 
15.  Shakespeare,  172. 


388        INDEX  OF  PARTICULAR  PSALMS 


Psalm  lxviii. — v.  1 8.  Bunj^an,  240. 
Psalm  LXix. — Bishop  Hooper,  141. 

V.  12.   Archbishop  Laud,  232. 
Psalm    lxxi. — Mary,    Queen    of 
Scots,    166  ;     Bishop    Jewel, 
175  ;      WilUam    Wilberforce, 
296. 
V.  I.  John  Howard,  325. 

8.  George  Herbert,  176; 
Jewel,  175;  Robert  San- 
derson, 228  ;  Madame  de 
Noailles,  351. 

10.  Madame  de  Noailles,  351. 
Psalm    lxxii. — Athanasius,    30  ; 

Ruskin,  321. 
V.  10,   II.  Christian  Art,  3. 
19.  Thomas  a  Kempis,  104. 
Psalm  lxxiii. — Early  Christians, 
12  ;    Bishop  Hooper,  141. 
V.  I.  Bishop       Hooper,       141  ; 
Coligny,  193. 

24.  Jerome,  26,  27. 

25.  Charles  Wesley,  294. 
Psalm     lxxiv.  —  Vaudois,     212  ; 

Covenanters,  263. 
V.  23.  Pizarro,  130. 
Psalm  lxxv. — Ruskin,  321. 
Psalm     lxxvi. — EngUsh    Nation 
(Spanish        Armada),       167  ; 
Robert   Bruce,    167  ;   Hugue- 
nots, 190  ;   Covenanters,  266  ; 
Kingsley,  299. 
V.  2.   John  Endicott,  224. 

11.  Turstin  of  York,  91. 
Psalm   lxxvii. — Bishop   Hooper, 

141. 
V.  3.  Fran9ois  de  Sales,  205. 
7-9.  Bunyan,  240. 
Psalm  lxxviii. — v.  30.  Turstin  of 

York,  91. 
Psalm  lxxix. — Huguenot  prison- 
ers,   189  ;     The    Jews,    189  ; 
The     Puritans,      189  ;       The 
French       Revolution,       189  ; 
Carthusians  of  Woburn,  189  ; 
Jean     Rabec,     190  ;      James 
Melville,  255. 
V.  I.   Jerome,  40. 
1-4.  Bede,  60. 
2.  Parsons,    189  ;     Luisa    de 

Carvajal,  189. 
5,  6.  Augustine,  36. 


Psalm  lxxix. — v.   9,  10.   Crispin 
and  Crispinian,  12. 

12.  John  Howard,  325. 
Psalms  lxxx.-lxxxviii. — Milton, 

235- 
Psalm     lxxx. — v.     5.     Elizabeth 
Barrett  Browning,  317. 

13.  Origen,   20;    Shakespeare, 

173- 
Psalm     lxxxii. — v.     i.     Bishop 

Andrewes,  226. 
Psalm    lxxxiii. — Benedict,     63  ; 
President  Kruger,  362,  363. 
V.  4.  President  Kruger,  362. 
13.  Cromwell,  244. 
Psalm       lxxxiv.  —  Benedictine 
Rule,  65  ;    Isabel  Alison  and 
Marion  Harvie,  276. 
V.  I.  Paula,  27. 

1,  2.      Fran9ois     de     Sales, 

204. 

2.  Fran9ois  de  Sales,  205. 
4.   Brendan,  55. 

11.  Paula,         28  ;        Thomas 

Aquinas,  65. 

12.  Carlyle,  345. 

Psalm     lxxxv. — Cromwell,    243, 
250. 
V.  8.  The  Imitatio  Christi,  103. 
9.   Robert  Southwell,  144. 

10.  Langland,  iii. 

Psalm  lxxxvi. — v.  7.  David  i.  of 
Scotland,  100. 

13.  Casaubon,  185. 

15.  Tennyson,  316. 

16.  Gladstone,  347. 

Psalm  lxxxvii. — Bishop  Hooper, 

141. 

V.  I.   University  of  Durham,  4. 

2.  Augustine,  38. 

Psalm  lxxxviii. — v.  7-10.  Henry 

of  Navarre,  194. 

11.  Wordsworth,  315. 

18.  Henry  of  Navarre,  194. 
Psalm    lxxxix. — v.  1.    Fran9ois 
de  Sales,  205. 
8.  Cromwell,  249. 
47.  Shakespeare,  172. 
Psalm     xc.  —  Isaac    Watts,     7  ; 
Charles  v.,  127  ;   John  Hamp- 
den,  235  ;     Newman — Geron- 
tius,  298  ;   Ruskin,  320. 


APPENDIX  B 


389 


Psalm  xci. — Cellini,   128  ;    Beza, 
183;  Ruskin,  320;  Sir  Harry 
Smith,  353. 
V.  I.  Henri  de  Rohan,  207. 
4.  Fran9ois  de  Sales,  204. 
7.  Casaubon,  184  ;   Sir  Harry 

Smith,  353. 
g.  Savonarola,  122. 
13.  Augustine,     36  ;      Barbar- 
ossa  and  Pope  Alexander 
III.,  80. 
Psalm  xcii. — Casaubon,  184. 
V.  1-3.   Benedictine  Rule,  65. 
4.   Dante,  107. 
Psalm   xciii. — The   Covenanters, 
271. 
11.  2 .  JVIediaeval  cosmogony,  102. 
Psalm"  xcv. — Battle-cry    of    the 
Templars,  84,  182. 
V.  6.  Christian     Friedrich     Sch- 
wartz, 330. 
Psalm  xcvi. — ^William  Law,  293. 
Psalm  xcvii. — v.  2.  Garfield,  349. 

7.  Emperor  Julian,  21. 
Psalm     c.  —  Shakespeare,      150; 
Longfellow,     151  ;      William 
Kethe,  151  ;  Louis  Bourgeois, 

151- 

V.  2.  Edward  Fitzgerald,  318. 
Psalm  ci. — Death  of  Monica,  17  ; 
Columba,  56  ;  Nicephorus 
and  Vladimir  Monomachus, 
97  ;  Ridley,  142  ;  Bacon, 
171. 
V.  6,  7.   Bacon,  171. 

10.  Bacon,  171. 

Psalm  cii. — David  Brainerd,  327. 
V.  6.  Christian  Art,  3. 

6,  7.   Robert  Southwell,  144. 

11.  Sundials,  4. 
13.   Fisher,  134. 

17.  Allen  Gardiner,  339. 

18.  De  Maistre,  306. 

Psalm     cm.  —  James     Renwick, 
275  ;  Sanderson,  227  ;  William 
Law,   293  ;   Ruskin,  320. 
V.  I.   David  Livingstone,  342. 
Psalm  civ. — Mediaeval  cosmogony, 
102  ;  Humboldt,  304  ;  Ruskin, 
321. 
V.  3.  Shakespeare,  173. 

5.  Mediaeval  cosmogony,  102. 


Psalm  civ. — v.  23.  Newman,  297. 
26.  Mediaeval         cosmogony, 

103. 
28.  Langland,  no. 
28-29.   James  Northcote,  313. 
29-30.  Lady  Jane  Grey,  154, 

155- 
30.  Wilfrid,  69. 
32.  Becket,  80. 
Psalm  cv. — v,  i.  Baxter's  pulpit, 

291. 
Psalm    cvi.  —  v.    3.     Louis    ix., 

100. 
Psalm    cvii.  —  Alexander     Duff, 

337- 
V.  8.  Cromwell,  244. 
16.  The  Golden  Legend,  112  ; 

Bunyan,  239. 
20.  Wishart,  253. 
Psalm   cviii. — President   Kruger, 

362. 
Psalm  cix.  —  v.   6-20.     Bunyan, 

241. 
Psalm  ex. — Luther,  124  ;   Crom- 
well, 246,  249. 
V.  4.   St.  Patrick,  50. 
Psalm  cxi. — ^William  Law,  293. 
V.  4,  5.  Dunstan,  71. 
10.   Charles  Bailly,  142. 
Psalm  cxii. — Ruslcin,  320. 

V.  4.   James       Melville,      257  ; 
Thomas  Chalmers,  300. 
Psalm    cxiii. — St.   Bernard,    89  ; 

Calvin,  182. 
Psalm    cxiv.  —  Francis    Borgia, 
Duke  of  Gandia,  65  ;    Dante, 
107  ;       Huguenots     on      the 
Loire,      193  ;     Milton,     235  ; 
Sir  Walter  Scott,  313. 
V.  3.  Antoninus  the  Martyr,  83. 
4.  Theodosius,  83. 
Psalm   cxv. — John   Sobieski,    85, 
180  ;     Cardinal    Ximenes,    at 
siege  of  Oran,  86. 
V.  I.  Agincourt,  85  ;   Henry  iv., 
85  ;     Shakespeare,    173  ; 
Bernard     Palissy,      182  ; 
William  Wilberforce,  296. 
4-8.   Jean  Leclerc,  188. 
4,  5.  Early  Christians,  12. 
8.  Cromwell,  245. 
16.  Burghley,  171. 


390       INDEX  OF  PARTICULAR  PSALMS 


Psalm     cxvi. — "  Quaker  "     Wal- 
lace, 360. 
V.   13.  St.  Bernard,  84. 
Psalm  cxvii. — Cromwell,  249. 
Psalm   cxviii. — Basil  in   Pontus, 
25  ;   Luther,  123  ;   Charles  v., 
125;  Huguenots,  190;  Land- 
ing of  William  of  Orange,  278  ; 
Rev.  George  Walker,  284. 
V.  G.  Cowpcr,  319. 
14.  Donald  Cargill,  2G8  ;   Cow- 

per,  311. 
i6-end.  Donald  Cargill,  269. 

17.  Wyclif,  115  ;  Luther,  123  ; 

Cowper,  311. 

18.  Baldwin,  85  ;  Cowper,  311. 
23,  24.  Cromwell  and  the  Scot- 
tish troops,  247. 

23.  Queen  Elizabeth,  161. 

24,  25.   Huguenots,    battle   of 

Courtras,      195  ;       d'Au- 
bigne,  196  ;   Louis  Rang, 
219  ;       Jacques      Roger, 
219  ;   Rochette,  221. 
26.  Charlemagne,  75. 

29.  Cowper,  311. 

Psalm  cxix.  —  Augustine,  38  ; 
"  Little  Alphabet  of  the 
Monks,"  etc.,  104  ;  William 
Wilberforce,  296  ;  Ruskin, 
320,  321  ;  Henry  Martyn, 
334  ;  David  Livingstone, 
340  ;  William  Edwards  (In- 
dian Mutiny),  358,  359. 
V.  6.  David  Brainerd,  329. 
20.  Thomas  Chalmers,  300. 

24.  Ruskin,  321. 

25.  Theodosius,   33  ;    Nicasius 

of  Rheims,   41  ;    Dante, 
107. 
28.  Maine  de  Biran,   307. 

30.  David  Brainerd,   328. 
36.  Pascal,  210. 

45.  David   Brainerd,   328. 
62.  Benedictine  Rule,  65. 
65-72.  Fran9ois  i.,  188. 
71.  Fran9ois  i.,  188. 

96.  A.  P.  Stanley,  299. 

97.  David       Brainerd,       328  ; 

John  Ruskin,  321. 
103.   John  Ruskin,  321. 
105.  Shakespeare,  174. 


Psalm  cxix. — v.  116.  Benedictine 

Rule,  64. 
121.  David  I.  of  Scotland,  100. 
137.  Emperor  Maurice,  13. 
148.   Izaak  Walton,  227. 
158.  Philip  Doddridge  and  Col. 

James  Gardiner,  344. 
164.   Benedictine  Rule,  65. 
175.  Silvia,  mother  of  Gregory, 

62. 
Psalm  cxx. — v.  4.  Cromwell,  243. 

5.  Benedictines  at  York,  90  ; 

Bacon,     171  ;      Hooker, 
345  ;  Carlyle,  345. 
Psalm    cxxi. — The    Covenanters, 
261  ;  Charles   Kingsley,  299  ; 
David       Livingstone,       341  ; 
James      Hannington,       343  ; 
William      Edwards      (Indian 
Mutiny),  360. 
V.  I.  Dante,  106. 

3.  Coghill  family,  3. 

4.  Franfois  de  Sales,  204. 
Psalm  cxxii. — The  Ettrick  Shep- 
herd, 315. 

V.  I.  Gregory  and   Nonna,    15  ; 
The  Huguenots,  180. 
Psalm     cxxiv.  —  Justus    Jonas, 
147  ;    John  Durie,  255. 
V.  5.   Edward  Irving,   302. 

6.  Huguenot  seal,  181. 
Psalm   cxxvi.  —  James  Melville, 

266. 
V.  I.   Robert  Estienne,  184. 

1.  6,  7.  Thackeray  (Esmond), 

317- 
Psalm  cxxvii. — Pope  Clement  iii., 
85  ;  William  Hamilton,  287. 
V.  I.  Compton  family,  3  ;    City 
of  Edinburgh,  3  ;  Eddy- 
stone      Lighthouse,      4  ; 
Huguenot       house       at 
Xainton,     186  ;      Benja- 
min Franklin,  225. 

2.  Madame  Guyon,  211. 

3.  Elizabeth  Barrett  Brown- 

ing, 317- 

4-6.  Bunyan,  242. 
Psalm  cxxviii. — Henry  11.,  178  ; 

Gladstone,  347. 
Psalm     cxxix. — Henri     Arnaud, 


APPENDIX  B 


391 


Psalm    cxxix. — v.  3.    Alexander 
Peden,  271. 

Psalm  cxxx.  —  Cellini,  128  ; 
Luther,  147,  174;  Hooker, 
174;  P.  Fletcher,  174  ;  Diane 
de  Poitiers,  179;  John  Wes- 
ley, 293  ;  French  Royalists, 
350. 
V.  3.  Beza,  184  ;  Bunyan, 
240. 

Psalm  cxxxii. — v.   15.  Gall,  50  ; 
Anselm,  79. 

18.  Paulinus,  19. 

19.  Shilling  of  Edward  vi.,  4. 
Psalm  cxxxiii. — v.   i.    Brendan, 

54  ;   Langland,  iii. 
Psalm    cxxxv. — David     Living- 
stone, 341. 
V.  7.  Mediaeval  cosmogony,  103. 
Psalm  cxxxvi. — Athanasivis,  31  ; 

Milton,  235. 
Psalm     cxxxvii.  —  Vincent     de 
Paul,  201  ;    Camoens,  203. 
V.  4.   Jerome,  26  ;   John  11.,  202. 
8.  Calvin,    222  ;     Sir    Robert 
Hamilton,  266. 
Psalm    cxxxix.  —  O.H.    German 
fragment  of  9th  century,  47  ; 
Linnasus,  48  ;    Thomson,  48  ; 
Ruskin,  326. 
V.  6.  More,  133. 
18.  Mazel,  218. 
24.  Port  Royalists,  210. 
Psalm  cxl. — v.  7.  Gladstone,  347. 
Psalm     cxli. — Early    Christians, 
12. 
V.  2.  Shakespeare,  172. 
Psalm   cxlii.— Francis  of   Assisi, 
94  ;     Catherine    de    Medicis, 
179. 


Psalm  cxliii. — v.  8.  Savonarola, 

120. 
Psalm  cxli  v. — St.  Bernard,  84. 
V.  I.  Philip  Jones,  i6g. 
4.  Sundials,  4. 
Psalm     cxlv.  —  Paul    Gerhardt, 
147  ;     Milton,    236  ;     James 
Gardiner,  344. 
V.  1.  WilUam  Law,  293. 
3.  Augustine,  34. 
9.  Langland,  no. 
10.  William  Carey,   331. 
13.  Mosque  at  Damascus,   39. 
Psalm     cxlvi. — William     Law, 
293  ;    Boer  Prisoners  in  Ber- 
muda, 361. 
V.  2.   Strafford,  232. 

3.  Ordericus  Vitalis,  96. 

4.  Fran9ois  de  Sales,   204. 
Psalm     cxlvii.  —  William    Law, 

293- 
V.  5.  Augustine,  34. 
9.  Shakespeare,  173. 
18.  Victory       over        Spanish 
Armada,  167. 
Psalm  cxlviii. — Francis  of  Assisi 
— Canticle    of    the    Sun,    94  ; 
Newman — Gerontius,  298. 
V.  2.  Brendan,  54. 

4.  Mediaeval  cosmogony,  102. 
8.  Mediaeval  cosmogony,  102  ; 
Alexander  Peden,  270. 
Psalm  cxlix. — Thomas  Miintzer, 
152  ;    Caspar  Schopp,   153. 
V.  5.  Richard  Baxter,  292. 
Psalm    cl. — Benedictine    Rule — 
Bell-casting,  65  ;    Newman — • 
Gerontius,  298. 
V.  6.   John       VIII.,        46  ;       De 
Maistre,  306. 


INDEX 


Abelard  and  Heloiise,  95  ; 
account  of  [M'Cabe,  chap,  xi.], 
98—100  ;  the  Historia  Cala- 
mitatum,  99  ;  letters  quoted,  99. 

Acre,  Baldwin  dies  at,  85. 

Adamnanus,  his  Life  of  Columba 
cited  [Fowler,  134],  57. 

Addison,  Joseph,  7  ;  quoted,  310  ; 
his  paraphrases  of  Psalms  xxiii. 
and  xix.,  310. 

Adelme,  abbot  of  Chaise-Dieu, 
at  the  passage  of  the  Tagus, 
86. 

iElla,  king  of  Northumbria,  61. 

.iElred,  of  Rievaulx,  cited  [Pinker- 
ton,  ii.  281-283],  100. 

Agincourt,  battle  of,  85. 

Agnes,  St.,  mosaics  at  Ravenna, 
6,  8. 

Aidan,  bishop  of  '  Lindisfarne. 
death  of  [Montalembert,  iv. 
127,  13411.],  58- 

Aignan,  St.,  saves  Orleans,  42. 

Aigues  Mortes,  St.  Louis  at 
[Martin,  iv.  326],  loi  ;  Vincent 
de  Paul  at  [Wilson,  22],  208  ; 
the  Tour  Constance  at,  213. 

Ainsworth,  Henry,  of  Amster- 
dam, his  version  of  the  Psalms, 
224. 

Airs-moss,  268. 

Aix-la-Chapelle,  death  of  Charle- 
magne   at    [Guettee,    iii.    238], 

75- 
Alais,   treaty    of,    209,   211  ;    the 

Camisards  at   [Peyrat,   i.   350], 

216-217. 
Alaric,  sack  of  Rome  by  [Gibbon, 

chap,  xxxi.],  41,  42. 
Alaric    11.,    killed    liy    Clovis    at 

Vougle  [Martin,  i.  447],  73. 


Alba,  St.  Teresa  dies  at  [Coleridge, 

iii.  369],  139. 
Alberic,  prior  of  Molesme  [Life  of 

Stephen  Harding,  Newman,  vol. 

i.],  88. 
d'Albret,      Jeanne,      mother      of 

Henry  of  Navarre,  197. 
Alen9on,    Henry    of    Navarre    at, 

194- 

Alexander  iii.,  Pope,  and  Bar- 
barossa,  80. 

Alexandria,  Cyril,  bishop  of,  19  ; 
return  of  Athanasius  to,  30. 

Alfonso  the  Valiant,  of  Castile,  86. 

Alfred,  King,  and  St.  Neot  \_Life  of 
S/.Neo^, Newman,  iii.  133],  69,70. 

Alison,  Isabel,  261  ;  her  death 
[Wodrow,  book  iii.  chap.  5  ; 
vol.  iii.  277  ;  Cloud  of  Witnesses, 
117  seq.'\,  276. 

Alnwick,  James  Melville  at,  257. 

"  Alphabet  of  the  Monks  "  [Kettle- 
well,  Brothers,  ii.  1 19-124;  see 
Appendix  A,  chap,  iv.],  104. 

"  Alte  fage,"  214. 

Alva,  Duke  of,  and  St.  Teresa 
[Cunninghame  Graham,  ii.  259], 
139  ;  and  Egmont,  158  ;  and 
the  Huguenots,  192. 

Amasea,  Theodore  of,  13. 

Ambrose,  9, 16,  30  ;  quoted  [Migne, 
xiv.  925,  223],  14  ;  quoted  by 
Casaubon,  185  ;  introduces  anti- 
phonal  chanting  [Baunard,  324 
seq.l,  18  ;  death  of  [Bright's 
History,  223 ;  Baunard,  594], 
18;  and  Theodosius  [Bright's 
Fathers,  i.  519;  Baunard,  448- 
456],  32;  and  Augustine,  17,  35, 
38 ;  on  the  Duties  of  the  Clergy, 
38. 


393 


394 


INDEX 


American  Constitution,  the,  Ben- 
jamin Franklin  on,  quoted 
[Works,  cd.  Sparks,  v.  155], 
225-226. 

Amiens,  Martin  of  Tours  at,  28. 

Andrewes,  Lancelot,  bishop,  8,  9, 
226. 

Angers,  Jean  Rabec  burned  at, 
190. 

Angoulgme,  Place  du  Murier  at, 
186. 

Angoumois,  the  {Huguenotes), 
186. 

Annan,  Presbytery  of,  and  Edward 
Irving,  301,  302. 

Anne  Boleyn,  her  marriage,  132. 

Annecy,  Francois  de  Sales  bom  at, 
203. 

Anselm,  Archbishop,  account  of 
[Church;  Montalembei^t,  vi.],  74, 
78,  79  ;  his  CtiY  Deus  Homo  ? 
[Montalembert,  vi.  170],  79. 

Anthem,  the  National,  3. 

Anthony,  king  of  Navarre,  his 
Psalm  [Douen,  i.  709],  179. 

Antiphonal  chanting.  See  Am- 
brose. 

Antoninus  of  Placentia,  the 
Martyr,  cited  [see  Appendix  A, 
chap,  iii.],  83. 

Antony,  St.,  account  of  [New- 
man's Historical  Sketches,  ii. 
99-102  ;  Baring-Gould,  17th 
January  ;  Alban  Butler,  17th 
January],  22-24  !  -^^/^  0/,  by 
Athanasius  [Migne,  Ixxiii.  126], 
25  ;   and  Augustine,  36. 

Antrim's  regiment  [Walker],  279. 

A  pologetical  Declaration,  The,  277. 

Aquileia,  Jerome  at,  26. 

Aquinas,  St.  Thomas,  65,  loi. 

Arbroath,  sundial  at,  4. 

Ardusson,  the  river,  98. 

Argenteuil,  Heloise  at,  gg. 

Aristotle,  loi. 

Armada,  the,  motto  of,  86,  167  ; 
account  of  [Froude,  xii.],  167, 
168. 

Armagnac,  valet  to  Henry  of 
Navarre,  ig4. 

Arnaud,  Henri  [Monastier,  ii.  126], 
212. 


Arnauld,  Antoine,  learns  the 
Psalms  by  heart,  210. 

Arnauld,  M6re  Angelique  [see 
Appendix  A,  chap.  viii., 
MSmoires  pour  servir,  etc.  ; 
Histoire  des  Persecutions,  etc.], 
209,  210. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  quoted,  53,  316. 

Arnold,  Thomas,  death  of  [Stan- 
ley, chap.  X.],  298. 

d'Arques,  Chateau,  battle  at,  196. 

Arundel,  Philip,  Earl  of,  in  the 
Tower  [Bayley,  i.  135],  142. 

Arundel,  Earl  of,  at  Strafford's 
trial  [Baillie],  229. 

Ash,  Thomas,  on  siege  of  London- 
derry, quoted  [Walker,  ed. 
Dwyer,  210],  284. 

AssLsi.     See  Francis. 

Atahualpa,  the  Inca,  130,  131. 

Athanasius,  22  ;  his  Life  of  St. 
Anthony,  takes  refuge  in  Rome, 

25- 

Athanasius,  St.,  9  ;  at  Rome 
[Bright's  Fathers,  i.  169,  180  ; 
Thierry,  i.  22,  23],  25;  returns 
to  Alexandria  [Bright's  Fathers, 
i.  199  ;  Stanley's  Eastern 
Church,  274  ;  Greg.  Naz.  orat., 
xxi.],  30  ;  at  church  of  St. 
Theonas  [Bright's  Fathers,  i. 
240  ;  History,  76,  77  ;  Stanley's 
Eastern  Church,  283],  31,  32. 

Attila,  42. 

d'Aubigne,  squire  to  Henry  of 
Navarre,  194  ;  cited  [Livre  17, 
cap.  XX.],  195  ;  death  of 
[Puaux,  v.  224  ;  Noailles,  i.  66], 
196. 

Augustine,  St.,  of  Canterbury 
[Bede,  i.  25  ;  Montalembert,  iii. 
186  seq.'],  61,  63. 

Augustine,  St.,  of  Hippo,  8,  9,  12  ; 
his  baptism  [Conf.,  ix.  6],  16,  17, 

38  ;  his  death  [Possidius,  xxi.  ; 
Bright's  Fathers,  ii.  306],  17  ; 
account  of  his  conversion,   34- 

39  ;  his  City  of  God,  38,  39,  40. 

Augustulus,  Emperor  Romulus,  44. 

Avila,  St.  Teresa  born  at  [Coler- 
idge, i.  4],  139. 

Avranches,  Henry  11.  at,  79. 


INDEX 


395 


Bacon,      Francis,      7,      10 ;      his 

Essays  quoted,    171  ;    his    Cer- 

taine  Psalms,  \ji. 
Badajoz,  Sir  Harry  Smith  at,  353. 
Baillie    of    Jerviswood,    death    of 

[Wodrow,  iv.  no  seq.'\,  273. 
Bailly,  Charles,  inscription  in  the 

Tower  [Bayley,  i.  149],  142. 
Baithen  and  Columba,  57. 
Baker,  Major,  at  siege  of  London- 
derry [Walker,  19th  April],  279. 
Baldwin,  Archbishop,  at  Crusades 

[Epist.    Cant.,    cccxlvi.  ;     Vini- 

sauf,  i.  66  ;  Hook,  ii.  572],  85, 
Bangor  [Montalembert,  ii.  397],  61. 
Bangor  Iltyd  {ibid.'],  61. 
Barbarossa  and  Alexander  iii.,  80. 
"  Barebones     Parliament,     The," 

Cromwell  and  [Carlyle,  iii.  201, 

225,  227],  247. 
Barlow,     Joel,     versifier     of     the 

Psalms,  225. 
Bartholomew,     St.,     massacre    of 

[Crottet,  322],  194,  225. 
Basil,    St.,    9,    24,    30;   his   death 

[Bright's  Fathers,  i.  393  ;  History, 

163],    17  ;    in    Pontus   [ibid.,   i. 

368  ;  History,  88  ;  Basil  Ep.,  19], 

24,   25  ;    and    Emperor    Valens 

[ibid.,  i.  373  ;    Greg.  Naz.  orat., 

XX.,  xliii.],  32. 
Basing   House,   siege   of   [Carlyle, 

Cromwell,  i.  209-213],  244-245. 
Basle,  Council  of,  118. 
Bass  Rock,  the,  prisoners  on,  261, 

269. 
Baxter,      Richard,      account      of 

[Orme],  291,  292,  331. 
Bay  Psalm  Book,  the,  224,  326. 
Bayles,  the  martyr  [Southwell,  cd. 

Grosart,  p.  52],  144. 
Beaton,     Cardinal,     and     George 

Buchanan, 253. 
Beauchamp  family,  the,  motto  of, 

3- 
Bee,  Anselm  at,  78. 
Becket,    Thomas     a,    murder     of 

[Stanley,  Canterbury,  122  seq.l, 

79- 
Bede,     the     Venerable,     9,     54  ; 
account   of   [Montalembert,   iv. 
239  seq.],  68. 


Bedfordshire,  John  Howard  in 
[Memoirs,  124],  324. 

Beisley,  George,  priest,  in  the 
Tower,  143. 

Bellamy,  Anne,  betrays  Robert 
Southwell  [Poems,  ed.  Grosart, 
liii.],  144. 

Bellot,  Cavalier,  besieged  at  [Pey- 
rat,  i.  451],  216. 

Bemerton,  George  Herbert  at,  176. 

Benedict  Biscop,  account  of  [Mon- 
talembert, iv.  172-186],  67,  68. 

Benedict,  St.,  of  Nursia,  founds 
Monte  Cassino  (Montalembert, 
i.  400],  42,  44;  Rule  of.  See 
Rule. 

Benezet,  Frangois,  his  death  [Coq- 
uerel,  ii.  50  ;  Peyrat,  ii.  420], 
220. 

Benignus  and  St.  Patrick,  51. 

Bernard,  St.,  9  ;  preaches  Crusade, 
84  ;  enters  Citeaux  [Newman, 
Life  of  Stephen  Harding],  89  ; 
abbot  of  Clairvaux  [ibid.],  89  ; 
and  Fountains  Abbey  [Narratio, 
etc.,  p.  35],  92. 

Berwick,  death  of  James  Melville 
at  [Diary,  xxviii.  seq.],  256. 

Beza,  Theodore,  account  of,  183, 
184  ;  his  translation  of  the 
Psalms,  148  ;  his  translation  of 
the  Psalms  quoted,  190  ;  his 
translation  of  the  Psalms  pro- 
hibited, 200. 

Bible  Society,  the,  founded,  323. 

Biran,  Maine  de.     See  Maine. 

"  Bishops'  Bible,  The,"  147. 

"  Bishops'  Drag  Net,  The,"  260. 

Black  Prince,  tlie,  coins  of,  4. 

"  Black  Tom  Tyrant  "  (Strafford), 
229. 

Blackader,  John,  quoted,  259. 

Blackmore,  Sir  Richard,  his  ver- 
sion of  the  Psalms,  7. 

Blantyre,  cotton  factory  at,  Liv- 
ingstone in,  340. 

Blednoch,  the  (Wigtown  martyrs), 
277,  278. 

Blesilla,  daughter  of  Paula 
[Thierry,  i.  32,  159-160],  25  ; 
her  death  [Thierry,  i.  219],  26. 

Boer  War,  the,  361-363. 


396 


INDEX 


Bohme,  Jacob,  329. 

Bokhara,  Conolly  and  Stoddart  at 
[Grovcr],  355. 

Bologna,  Savonarola  at  convent 
of,  120. 

Bonald,  Vicomte  de,  quoted,  304. 

Booth,  assassinates  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, 348. 

Bordeaux  Pilgrim,  the  (Itinerary) 
[Thierry,  i.  37],  26,  82. 

Borgia,  Francis,  Duke  of  Gandia 
[Abrege  dc  sa  vie,  29],  65. 

Borgia,  Rodcrigo  (Pope  Alexander 
VI.),  and  Savonarola  [Villari,  i. 
152,  and  passim'],  120. 

Boswell  quotes  Archbishop  Seeker 
[ed.  Hill,  i.  33],  311. 

Bothwell,  Earl,  and  Wishart 
[Knox,  book  i.],  254. 

Bothwell  Bridge,  battle  of  [Wod- 
row,  iii.  106,  107],  267. 

Bouges  Mountain,  214. 

Bourgeois,  Louis,  sets  the  Psalms 
to  music,  149,  151. 

Bourget,  Psalter  found  at,  354. 

Boussac,  legendary  treasure  at, 
III. 

Boyne,  the,  battle  of,  279. 

Brady,  Nicholas,  and  Nahum  Tate, 
150. 

Brainerd,  David  [Life,  Remains, 
and  Letters,  ed.  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards,    1845,    Aberdeen],    224, 

326,  349  ;  his  death  \ihid.'\,  327  ; 
his  journal  [Diary  of  David 
Brainerd,  2  vols.,  London,  1902], 

327,  329- 

Brantome,  cited,  on  Conde  [Dis- 
cours,  Ixxx.  i],  192  ;  quoted,  on 
Coligny  [Discours,  Ixxix.],  193  ; 
at  La  Rochelle,  195. 

Breagh,  plain  of,  St.   Patrick  at, 

50- 
Breda,  Charles  11.  at,  246. 
Brcgenz,    Columban   and    Gall   at 

[Montalcmbert,  ii.  272],  49. 
Brendan,  St.,  52  ;    voyage  of,  52, 

53- 
Brest,  John  Howard  at  [Memoirs, 

19].  324- 
Bretigny,  the  peace  of,  195. 
Bright,  John,  quoted,  346. 


Britain,  invasion  of  [Bede],  59  ; 
early  colleges  in  [Montalcmbert, 
iii.  146,  152],  56  ;  described  by 
Procopius,  61  ;  the  Danes  in,  69. 

Brittany  and  La  Vendee,  insurrec- 
tion in  [Les  Chouans,  ii.  135 
seq.],  350,  351- 

Brittia,  island  of,  described  by 
Procopius,  61. 

Browne,  Ezckiel,  Hampden  dies  in 
his  house,  235. 

Browning,  Elizabeth  Barrett, 
quoted,  317. 

Browning,  Micaiah,  captain  of 
The  Mount  joy  [Walker,  27th 
July],  284. 

Browning,  Robert,  his  Ring  and 
the  Book  quoted,  23,  316  ; 
"  Pambo  "  quoted,  24  ;  "  Straf- 
ford "  quoted,  231. 

Bruce,  of  Earlshall,  and  the  Cove- 
nanters at  Airs-moss  [Knox, 
book  iii.  chap.  4],  267. 

Bruce,  Robert,  the  preacher,  at 
Edinburgh,  167. 

Brussels,  Egmont  at,  158. 

Bryant,  William  Cullen,  versifier 
of  the  Psalms,  225. 

Brydges  on  the  119th  Psalm,  358, 

359. 
Brydges,   Sir  John,  Lieut,   of  the 

Tower,  155. 
Brydges,  Master,  and  Lady  Jane 

Grey,  156. 
Brydon,    Dr.,   survivor  at   Cabul, 

356. 
Budaon,  William  Edwards  at,  357. 
Buchanan,      George,      his      Latin 

version  of  the  Psalms,  253. 
Buckingham,  George  Villiers,  first 

Duke  of,  driven  from  Rhe,  208  ; 

Bacon's    advice    to    [Spedding, 

Life  and  Letters,  vi.  24],  171. 
Bullinger,  Heinrich,  Bishop  Hooper 

and, 140. 
Bunyan,  John,  8,  9,  235,  321,  327; 

his  Grace  Abounding,  237-242. 
Burghley,  William  Cecil,  Lord,  10, 

170, 171. 
Burns,  Robert,  7. 
Butchers'    Companj-,    the,    motto 

of,  3- 


INDEX 


397 


Butler,  Reuben,  and  Jeanie  Deans, 

262.  V 

Byron,  Lord,  and  the  Psalms,  314. 

Cabul,     destruction      of      British 

force  at,  355,  356. 
Cadoc   the  Wise,   abbot   of   Llan- 

carvan  [Montalembert,  ii.  406], 

61. 
Calvin,    John,    148  ;     account   of, 

182,  183. 
"Calypso's  Island,"  Basil's  retreat 

in  Pontus,  24. 
Cameron,    Michael    [Wodrow,    iii. 

212],  267. 
Cameron,    Richard    [Wodrow,    iii. 

212,  220],  267  ;   death  of,  268. 
Cameronian  Regiment,  the,  368. 
Cameronians,   the,  261,   268,  272, 

273,  276,  278. 
Camisards,  the,  216-218. 
Camoens,  Luiz  de,  17  ;    his  exile, 

202,  203 ;     The  Lusiad  quoted, 

202. 
Camp,  Maxima  du,  354. 
Camus,   Bishop,  his  Esprit  de  St. 

Frafifois  de  Sales,  203. 
Canossa,   Henry   iv.   at   [Bowden, 

ii.  174  ;    Montalembert,  v.  364], 

77-  ,      , 

Canterbury,     Augustme     of     (see 

Augustine)  ;  Benedict  Biscop  at, 

67  ;    Wilfrid  at,  68  ;    Dunstan, 

archbishop     of,     70  ;      Anselm, 

archbishop  of,   78  ;     murder  of 

Becket,  79  ;    penance  of  Henry 

II.,  79  ;    pilgrimages  to,  83. 

Capitulary  of  Aix-la-Chapelle.  See 
Aix-la-Chapelle. 

Carey,  William,  325,  329,  338,  349  ; 
sails  for  India,  330  ;  account  of, 
329-331;    quoted,  331. 

Cargill,  Donald,  258,  261,  274  ; 
account  of  [Wodrow,  book  iii. 
chap.  4  ;  Six  Saints,  vol.  ii.  ; 
Cloud  of  Witnesses,  6  seq.^,  268; 
quoted  \_Six  Saints,  ii.  8],  258. 

Carlyle,  Alexander,  on  Col.  Gar- 
diner   [Autobiography,    p.     16], 

343- 
Carlyle,    Thomas,     7,     301,     345  ; 
quoted,  329,  354  ;    on  Sir  Wil- 


Uam  Hamilton,  308 ;  and 
Ruskin,  318,  320;  his  "  Luther's 
Psalm"  [Critical  and  Misc.  Es- 
says, iii.],  125. 

Carlyle,  Jane  Welsh.     See  Welsh. 

Caroline,  Queen,  296. 

Carrack,  Peden  preaches  at  \_Six 
Saints,  i.  90],  272. 

Carrichon,  M.,  and  Madame  de 
Noailles,  351,  352. 

Carrickfergus,  Ped«n's  escape 
from,  270. 

Carstairs,  William,  at  Torbay 
[Life,  p.  34],  278. 

Carvajal,  Luisa  de,  quoted  [Life, 
Lady  G.  Fullerton,  p.  254],  189. 

Casaubon,  Isaac,  10  ;  story  of  pVL 
Pattison,  335],  184. 

Caswall,  Edward,  137. 

Cataldus  of  Tarentum  [Montalem- 
bert, iii.  157],  46. 

"  Cathac,  The,"  Columba's  Psalter 
[Stubbs,  261,  262],  56. 

Catherine  of  Aragon,  the  divorce, 
^ii,  136  ;  Forest,  her  confessor 
[Lingard,  v.  107  n.  ;  Faithful 
unto  Death'],  136. 

Catherine  de  Medicis  [Douen  i. 
709],  10,  178,  179,  192,  194,  197. 

Caussade,  Rochette  captured  at, 
220. 

Cavalier,  Jean,  account  of  [Pej'- 
rat,  i.  350,  451  ;    ii.  85],  216. 

Cawnpore,  Henry  Martyn  at,  333. 

Caxton,  The  Golden  Legend 
quoted,  112-114. 

Cellini,  Benvenuto,  119  ;  account 
of,  127,  128. 

Certosa,  the,  Francis  i.  at  the 
church  of,  188. 

Cervantes,  7. 

Cesarea,  death  of  Basil  at  [Bright's 
Fathers,  i.  393  ;  History,  163], 
18  ;  Basil  and  Valens  at,  32. 

Cesarius,  bishop  of  Aries  [Monta- 
lembert, i.  353],  42. 

Cevenols,  the,  84,  152,  213-216, 
261. 

Chablais,  Fran9ois  de  Sales  at, 
204. 

Chaise-Dieu,  Benedictine  abbey 
of,  86. 


398 


INDEX 


Chalcedon,  death  of  Emperor 
Maurice  at,  i8. 

Chalcis,  desert  of,  Jerome  in, 
26. 

Chalgrove  Field,  death  of  John 
Hampden  at,  234,  235. 

Chalmers,  Thomas,  account  of 
[sec  Appendix  A,  chap,  xi.], 
300,  311  ;  preaches  at  Edin- 
burgh [Hanna,  iv.  309,  341], 
300. 

Chantal,  Madame  dc,  199,  203. 

Charenton,  Casaubon  at,  184. 

Charlemagne,  10  ;  at  Rome 
[Martin,  ii.  262,  263,  328],  74, 
75  ;  death  of  [Martin,  ii.  364  ; 
Guettee,  iii.  238],  75. 

Charles  i.,  sanctions  the  Psalter, 
151,  226  ;  and  Strafford,  231 ;  at 
Newark,  235  ;  and  Scottish 
Kirk,  257. 

Charles  11.,  and  Scottish  Kirk, 
246  ;  accession  of,  and  Cargill, 
258. 

Charles  v.  of  Spain,  10,  119  ;  and 
Marot,  125;  abdication  and 
death  [StirUng-Maxwell],  126, 
127. 

Charles  ix.  of  France,  194. 

Charlton,  Margaret,  wife  of 
Richard  Baxter  [Orme,  i.  296], 
291. 

Charterhouse,  the,  monks  of,  exe- 
cuted [Froude,  ii.  342-362], 
135,  136. 

Chaucer  quoted,  109. 

Chayla,  Fran9ois  du,  account  of 
[Peyrat,  i.  287  seq.],  214,  215. 

Cherson.     See  Kherson. 

Choczin,  battle  of,  180. 

Christian  Year,  The,  296. 

Chrysostom,  St.  John,  his  favour- 
ite Psalm,  184. 

Cistercians,  the,  founded  by 
Stephen  Harding  [Life,  in  New- 
man, vol.  i.],  87  ;  in  England 
[ibid.,  vol.  V.  108,  167  n.],  90. 

Citeaux,  foundation  of  [Newman, 
vol.  i.],  88. 

Clain  river,  29. 

Clairvaux,  monastery  of  [New- 
man, vol.  i.],  89. 


Clarendon,  Lord,  on  the  death  of 

John  Hampden,  234. 
Claverhouse   at   Drumclog   [Wod- 

row,  iii.  69],  261,  266. 
Clement   of   Alexandria,  Stromata 

quoted,  14. 
Clement  iii..  Pope,  and  Crusades, 

85. 
Clement    vii..    Pope,    and    Henry 

VIII.  [Lingard,  v.  2,  13,  19-20], 

132. 
Clifford,  Lord,  loi. 
Clovis,  his  baptism,  72  ;   at  battle 

of  Vougle  [Martin,  i.  447],  73. 
Cluni,  Hugh  of  [Vita,  apud  Migne, 

chx.  867],  66. 
Clyde,     the,     apparition     on     the 

banks  of  [Six  Saints,  i.  33],  261. 
Cobbett,    William,     and     Wilber- 

force  [Life  of  Wilherforce,  v.  68], 

296. 
Coburg,  Luther  at,  16,  123. 
Cod,    Cape,     landing    of    Pilgrim 

Fathers  at,   224. 
Coghill  family,  the,  motto  of,  3. 
Coins,  of  Black  Prince,  of  Edward 

III.,   of   Edward   vi.,   4  ;   struck 

to     commemorate     defeat     of 

Armada,  167. 
Coligny,  Andelot  de,  191. 
Coligny,   Gaspard  de.  Admiral  of 

France,    180,     190,     191,     193  ; 

account     of     [Brantome,     iii.], 

191-195- 
Colmc-kill,  58. 
Columba,     St.,     9  ;      account     of 

[Montalembert,  iii.  1-133  !   Life, 

by  Adamnan,    iii.   xxiii.  ;     and 

Reeve's    Introduction,    xxxiii.], 

55-58. 
Columban,    St.,    46;     account    of 

[Montalembert,    ii.     272,    etc.  ; 

Life,     apud     Migne,      Ixxxvii., 

1014],  48,  49,  50. 
Columbus,   Christopher,    10,    119; 

account     of,      129  ;       signature 

[Markham,  295  ;  Irving,  iv.  437], 

129. 
Commet,  M.  de,  Vincent  de  Paul 

writes  to,  201. 
Compostella,  pilgrimages  to,  84. 
Compton  family,  the,  motto  of,  3. 


INDEX 


399 


Conde,  Prince  de,  i8o,  192,  193. 

Conolly,  Capt.  Arthur,  death  of, 
at  Bokhara  [Kaj^e's  Indian 
Officers,  139,  144],  355. 

Constance,  Council  of,  117,  118. 

Constance,  Tour,  at  Aigues  Mortes, 
213. 

Constantius,  Emperor,  and  Athan- 
asius,  30. 

Corneille,  his  Heraclius,  13  ;  trans- 
lates the  Psalter,  200. 

Coronation  offices,  the,  based  on 
the  Psalms,  3. 

Corsairs,  Barbary,  201. 

Cotton,  Mr.,  of  Boston,  Cromwell 
writes  to  [Carlyle,  iii.  172-173], 
249. 

Cotton,  Dr.,  his  asylum,  Cowper 
at,  311. 

Council,  of  Basle,  118  ;  of  Con- 
stance, 117,  118  ;  of  Milan,  30  ; 
of  Toledo  [Hefele,  iv.  471],  48  ; 
of  Toulouse,  146. 

Courtras,  battle  of  [Douen,  i.  11], 

195- 
Cousin,  Victor,  on  Maine  de  Biran, 

304- 
Covenant,  The  National,  signed  at 

Edinburgh  [Wodrow,  i.],  258. 
Covenant,     The     Solemn     League 

and,  257  ;   prohibited  [Wodrow, 

i.  243],  258. 
Covenanters,  the,  and  Boers  com- 
pared, 361-363. 
Coverdale,  Miles,  his  version  of  the 

Psalter,  146. 
Cowper,    William    [see    Appendix 

A],    7  ;     and    Madame    Guyon, 

211  ;     account      of,      311-312  ; 

quoted    [Southey's    Life,   chap. 

vi.],  311. 
Craig,      John,     versifier     of     the 

Psalms,    151. 
Craigmad,     apparition     at      \_Six 

Saints,  i.   35],  261. 
Cranmer,  Thomas,   132  ;    and  the 

Psalter,  146. 
Crashaw,  Richard,  7. 
Crespin,  his  martyrology,  187. 
Crewe,     Mrs.,     afterwards     Lady, 

and  Wilberforce  [Life,  i.  47,  48, 

etc.],  295. 


Crispin,      and      Crispinian,      SS. 

[Surius,   Alban  Butler,   Baring- 
Gould,  25th  October;    Hasted's 

Kent,  iii.  514],  12,  13. 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  84  ;    account  of 

[Carlyle],  243-250. 
Cromwell,  Thomas,  death  of,  142. 
Cross,  "  Invention  "   of  the.     See 

Helena. 
"Crossing  the  Bar,"  269. 
Cruithnechan,  priest,  and  Columba 

[Reeve's      Adamnan,      Introd., 

xxxiii.],  55. 
Crusades,  the,  84-86. 
Cuthbert,     St.,     9  ;      account     of 

[Montalembert,     iv.      127-155  ; 

Bede,    cap.    xxxvii.-xl.],  9,  58, 

59;  his  "  beads"  [Marmion,  11. 

xvi.],  59. 
Cyran,    St.,    suspected   of   heresy, 

209. 
Cyril,    of    Alexandria,    death    of 

[Bright's      Fathers,       ii.      424  ; 

History,  370],  19. 
Cyril.     See  Methodius. 


Dairy,  rising  at,  262. 

Dalzell,  General,  at  Rullion  Green, 
261,  262. 

Damascus,  mosque  at,  inscription 
on,  39. 

Damour,  Pastor,  at  Ch&teau 
d'Arques,  196. 

Dante,  7  ;  on  Anselm  [Paradtso, 
xii.  137],  78  ;  Divina  Corn- 
media  quoted,  45,  105,  108  ; 
on  the  Penitential  Psalms,  105. 

Darnley,  Earl  of,  death  of 
[Froude,    viii.,    ix.],    161-165. 

Dartmouth,  The,  at  siege  of  Lon- 
donderry [Walker,  30th  July  ; 
ed.  Dwyer,  211],  284. 

David,  King,  his  harp,  i  ;  Henry 
IV.  compared  with  him,  204. 

David  I.  of  Scotland,  95  ;  his 
death  [Pinkerton,  ii.  281-283], 
100. 

Daye,  John,  publishes  complete 
version  of  the  Psalter,  149. 

Deans,  Jeannie  {Heart  of  Mid- 
lothian), 262. 


400 


INDEX 


"  Declaration,     The     Sanquhar " 

[Wodrow,  iii.  212  n.],  268. 
Defensor,    Bishop    [Baring-Gould, 

Martin,  nth  November,  p.  246], 

29. 
Demetrius   of   the   Don    [Stanley, 

Eastern      Church,      402      seq.  ; 

Karamsin,      iv.      377     and     v. 

78-86],  86,  87,  180. 
Deo  Gratias,   bishop  of  Carthage 

[Gibbon,  chap,  xxxvi.],  42. 
Derry     (Londonderry),     siege     of 

[Walker,      see      Appendix      A, 

chap,  x.],  27S-285  ;  William  and 

Mary    proclaimed    at    [Walker, 

2oth  March],  279. 
Desportes,    Abbe,    translates    the 

Psalter,  200. 
Dessen  Island,  Alexander  Duff  at, 

337- 
Diane  de  Poitiers  [Douen,  i.  709  ; 

Bordier,  ix.],  179. 
Diarmid,  King,  and  Columba,  56. 
Diarmid,   attendant  of  Columba, 

57- 
Die,  Louis  Rang  dies  at,  219. 
Dieppe,  ChS,teau  d'Arques  at,  196. 
Dinapore,  Henry  Martyn  at,  333. 
Diocletian,    persecution    of,     a.d. 

288,  12. 
Dnieper,  the,  97. 
Doddridge,  Philip,   cited,   on  Col. 

Gardiner,  343,  344. 
Domenico,    Fra,   and   Savonarola, 

120. 
Donatus,  of  Fiesole,  46. 
Donskoi,  monastery,  87. 
Doon  Hill,  at  Dunbar,  247. 
Douglas,    Capt.    Andrew,    of    The 

Phcenix    [Walker,    30th    July], 

284. 
Dragonnades,  the,  212. 
Drogheda,  Cromwell  at,  24G. 
Druids,  the,  and  St.  Patrick,    51, 

52. 
Drumclog,  266,  363  ;    account  of, 

266. 
Drummond       of       Hawthornden, 

quoted  [ii.  21],  111. 
"  Drunken  Parliament,  The,"  258. 
Dudley,   Lady   Jane,   account    of, 

I53-I57- 


Dudlej',  Lord  Guildford,  death  of, 

155- 
Duff,  Alexander,  10,  331  ;  account 

of,  336-338  ;    (Indian  Mutiny), 

360  ;    quoted,   357. 
Dunbar,    Wilfrid    imprisoned    at, 

68  ;     battle   of   [Carlyle,   iii.   28 

seq.],  247-249. 
Dunottar,  prisoners  at,  261. 
Dunstan,   St.,   9,  67  ;    account  of 

[Lingard,  A.S.  Church,  ii.   267, 

etc.  ;    Vita,  ed.  Stubbs,  61,  355], 

70. 
Durham  University,  motto  of,  4. 
Durie,  John,  account  of  [Melvill's 

Diary,   134],  256. 
Dusseldorf,  103. 
Dwight,  Timoth5^  versifier  of  the 

Psalms,  225. 

Eddystone  Lighthouse,  the,  in- 
scription in  [Smeaton,  p.  183],  4. 

Edgar,  King,  70. 

Edinburgh,  motto  of,  3  ;  John 
Knox  dies  at,  255  ;  John  Durie 
at,  256  ;  National  Covenant 
signed  at,  258  ;  Cargill  executed 
at,  269  ;  Renwick  executed  at, 
285  ;  Isabel  Alison  and  Marion 
Harvie  executed  at,  276. 

Edward  vi.  and  Sternhold,  149. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  Life  of  David 
Brainerd,  326. 

Edwards,  William,  his  escape, 
357-360  ;  his  Diary  quoted, 
359.  360. 

Egmont,  Count  of,  his  trial  and 
death  [Motley,  part  iii.,  i.  and 
ii.],  157-160  ;  his  letter  to 
Philip  II.  [ibid.,  chap,  ii.],  159. 

Eleyn,  Mistress,  and  Lady  Jane 
Grey,  156. 

Eliot,  John,  missionary,  224,  326, 
329 ;  account  of,  326-329. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  7  ;  the  "  Geneva 
jigs,"  150  ;  on  death  of  Mary, 
161  ;  her  version  of  Psalm  xiv. 
quoted,  161. 

Elwy  Monastery  founded  [Monta- 
lembert,  ii.  396],  61. 

Ely,  Croniwcli  at  [Carlyle,  i.  81], 
242. 


INDEX 


401 


Endicott,  John,  Pilgrim  Father, 
224. 

Enfants  de  Dieu,  Cevenols 
[Peyrat,  i.  271,  314],  213. 

Epiphanius,  bishop  of  Pavia,  42. 

Episcopacy  in  Scotland,  257  seq. 

Erasmus,  84,  118  ;  Luther  on 
[Table-talk,  dclxxi.,  dclxxii.], 
128  ;  on  Luther  [Epist.  vi.  4], 
131  ;  and  Fisher  [Bridgett,  98  ; 
Erasm.  Ep.,  109],  134. 

Essex,  Earl  of,  his  death,  171. 

Estienne,  Rolsert,  and  the  Sor- 
bonne  [Douen,  i.  13],  184. 

Estramadura,  Charles  v.  in,  126. 

Ethandun,  battle  of,  69. 

Ethelred,  coronation  of,  71. 

Ettrick  Shepherd,  the.     See  Hogg. 

Etzel  (Attila),  42. 

Eugenie,  Empress,  flight  of,  355. 

Euodius,  friend  of  Augustine,  17. 

Eustochium  [Thierry,  St.  Jerome, 
i.  32,  159,  160],  14,  25  ;  at 
Bethlehem  [ibid.,  i.  298,  etc.], 
27;  death  of  [ibid.,  ii.  240],  27. 

Evans,  Dr.,  and  Empress  Eugenie, 

355- 
Exhibition    of    1851,    the,    motto 
of,  4. 

Fage,  Durand,  quoted  [see  Douen, 
i.  23],  213. 

Fairfax,  Thomas,  Lord,  7. 

Fame  Island,  Cuthbert  on 
[Montalembert,  iv.  137],  58. 

Feckenham,  abbot  of  West- 
minster, and  Lady  Jane  Grey, 

154.  156. 
Fenelon,  archbishop  of   Cambrai, 

199  ;   and  Madame  Guyon,  21  r. 
Ferdinand  the  Catholic,  his  death 

foretold        [Stirling  -  Maxwell's 

Charles  V.,  266],  126. 
Feuillants,  the,  199. 
Feva,  King  of  Rugii,  44. 
Finnian,       St.,       and       Columba 

[Montalembert,  iii.  20],  56. 
Fisher,  John,  bishop  of  Rochester, 

118  ;      account     of     [Bridgett. 

See     Appendix    A,    chap,    v.], 

133-13.5.  140- 
Fitzgerald,  Edward,  318. 


Fitzurse,  murderer  of  Becket,  79, 

Flagellum  Dei  (Attila),  42. 

Flanders,  Dunstan  in,  70. 

Fletcher,  Dr.,  dean  of  Peter- 
borough ;  and  Mary,  Queen  of 
Scots,  165. 

Fletcher,  Phinehas,  7  ;  quoted 
[Poet.  Misc.,  Psalm  cxxx., 
stanza  3],  174. 

Florence,  Spinello's  frescoes  at, 
42  ;  Savonarola  at,  119,  120, 
121. 

ForQats  de  la  Foi  [see  Appendix 
A,  chaps,  vii.,  viii.],  181. 

Forest,  John,  Confessor  to 
Catherine  of  Aragon  [Lingard, 
v.  107  n. ;  Faithful  unto  Death, 
chap,  iii.],  135. 

Fotheringay,  Mary,  Queen  of 
Scots,  executed  at,  165. 

Fountains  Abbey,  foundation  of 
[Narratio,  etc.  See  Appendix 
A,  chap,  iv.],  90-92  ;  deputation 
to  Oairvaux  [ibid.,  p.  35],  92. 

Fox,  Charles  James,  and  Wilber- 
force  [Life  of  Wilberforce,  i.  17], 

295- 

Fox,  George,  the  Quaker,  329. 

Fox,  John,  the  Martyrologist, 
quoted  [i555.  I554],  142,  I57- 

Franc,  Guillaume,  sets  the  Psalms 
to  music,  149. 

Francis  i.  of  France  and  Cellini 
128  ;  and  Marot,  148  ;  at  the 
church  of  the  Certosa,  i( 
his  death,  189. 

Francis  of  Assisi,  St.,  his  "  Canticle 
of  the  Sun  "[  Sabatier,  304-305 
M.  Arnold,  Essays  in  Criticism 
212-213],  93-95  ;  account  of 
[Sabatier  ;  Spec.  Perfectionis 
chaps,  iv.,  cxiii.,  cxviii.],  93-95 

Franciscans  at  Greenwich,  135. 

Fran9ois     de     Sales,     St.,     201 
account  of   [Lear,  27-28  ;   259- 
265,    etc.],   201-203  ;    and    the 
Port-Ro5^alists,  209. 

Fran9ois  Xavier.     See  Xavier. 

Prankish  Kingdom,  the,  72,  73. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  on  the 
American  Constitution  [Works, 
ed.  Sparks,  v.  155],  225,  226. 


402 


INDEX 


Free  Church,   the,   founded,   300, 

301. 
Frere,  John  Hookham,  7. 
Frisians,  the,  Wilh-id  and,  68. 
Fry,  EUzabcth,  325. 
Fuller,     Thomas,     cited     [Church 

Hist.,  book  vii.,  31,  32],  150. 
Furruckabad,    Edwards    and    the 

Probyns  at,  358,  360. 


Gall,  St.,  46  ;  at  Bregenz 
[Montalembert,  ii.  272],  49  ; 
founds     monastery     [ibid.,     ii. 

293].  50- 

Gandia,  Duke  of.  See  Borgia, 
Francis. 

Gardiner,  Allen  Francis,  Com- 
mander, acco\:nt  of  [Marsh's 
Memoir],  338-340  ;  his  Diary 
quoted  [ibid.,  363  seq.],  339, 
340. 

Gardiner,  James,  Colonel,  account 
of  [Doddridge,  Remarkable  Pas- 
sages, 30  seq.],  343-345;  his 
vision  [ibid.,  84,  85],  343,  344. 

Gardon  river,  Lalande  defeated 
at,  217,  218. 

Garfield,   President    James,    348, 

349- 
Gascoyne,  Judge,  81. 
Geneva,  Calvin  introduces  chant- 
ing of  Psalms  at,  183  ;   Fran9ois 

de  Sales  at,  204. 
"Geneva  Jigs,  The,"  150. 
Genevieve,  St.,  and  Paris  [Alban 

Butler,  3rd  January],  42. 
Gent,  Thomas,  historian  of  York, 

81,  82. 
Gerhardt,  Paul,  his  hymn,  147. 
Germanus,  bishop    of  Auxerre,  in 

Britain  [Bede,  i.  xvii.  and  xx.], 

60. 
Ghent,  monastery  of  St.  Peter  at, 

Dunstan  in,   70  ;    Egmont  and 

Horn  at,  158. 
Gibson,  John,  death  of  [W'odrow, 

iv.  243],  276. 
Gioacchino  di  Fiore,  the  Calabrian 

seer  [Sabatier,  St.  Francis,  46- 

50].  93- 
Gisa,  Queen  of  the  Rugii,  44. 


Gladstone,     W.     E.,      10,     346 ; 
account  of,    346,    347 ;    quoted, 

347- 
Glasgow,      Edward      Irving      at, 

303- 
Glastonbury,   Dunstan,  abbot  of, 

70. 
Goa,  Camoens  at,  202,  203. 
Godeau,    bishop    of    Grasse    and 

Vence,     his     Preface     to     the 

Psalms     quoted     [2nd     ed.,     p. 

viii.],  200. 
Godfrey,    abbot    of     St.     Mary's, 

York,  87. 
Goethe,  8,  363. 
Golden   Legend,  The,    quoted    [ed. 

Ellis,  vol.  i.  98],  1 1 2-1 1 4. 
Gorgonia,       sister      of      Gregory 

Nazianzen,  her  death  [Ullmann, 

136,  137],  15. 
Gottheben,  118. 
Goute,   Madame   de   la,   sister  of 

the  widow  Prosni,  208. 
Goudimel,  Claude,  sets  the  Psalms 

to  music,  149. 
Gratian,  Emperor,  18. 
Greenwich,  Franciscans  at  [Faith- 
ful unto  Death.     See  Appendix 

A,  chap,  v.],  135. 
Gregory      of      Decapolis,      cited 

[Migne,      c.      1210  ;       Galland, 

Bibl.  Vet.  Pat.,  xiii.  513],  13. 
Gregory    the    Great,    account    of 

[Vita,    ap.   Migne,   Ixxv.,    230  ; 

Greg.  Epist.  i.  v.  ;  ibid.,  Ixxvii. 

448],  62,  63  ;  and  conversion  of 

England,  62,  63  [Montalembert, 

iii.    186    seq.  ;     Bede,    i.    xxv.], 

62,  63. 
Gregory    Nazianzen,    account    of 

[Ullmann],     15,     16  ;      against 

Julian,  38. 
Gregorj^  father  of  the  preceding 

[Ullmann,  17,  19,  302],  15. 
Gregory   vii.,    Pope.     See   Hilde- 

brand. 
Grelet,     M.,     and     Madame     de 

Noailles,  351. 
Grenfell,      Lj-dia,      and      Henry 

Martyn      [Sargent's      JMeinoir ; 

Journal],  332,  333,  334,  335. 
Grenoble,  219. 


INDEX 


403 


Grey,  Lady  Jane.     See  Dudley. 

Grey,  Lady  Katharine,  sister  of 
Lady  Jane,  155. 

Groningen,  James  Renwick  at, 
274. 

Guilds,  mottoes  of,  3. 

Guiscard,  Robert,  and  Salerno 
[Bowden,  i.  156],  76  ;  and 
Hildebrand  [Bowden,  11.  312  ; 
Montalembert,  v.  365],  77. 

Guise,  Due  de,  190,  192. 

Gustavus  Adolphus,  watchword 
of,  84. 

Guthrun,  the  Dane,  70. 

Guyon,  Madame,  her  imprison- 
ment [Upham's  Life,  379],  211. 

Gwynlliu,  the  Warrior  [TVIonta- 
lembert,  ii.  409-410],  61. 

Gytha,  wife  of  Vladimir  Mono- 
machus,  97. 

Hadrian  i..  Pope,  and  Charle- 
magne, 74,  75. 

Hfemmerlein,  Thomas.  See  d 
Kempis. 

Hague,  the,  John  Howard  at,  325. 

Hall,  Bishop,  7  ;  preaches  at 
Whitehall,  226. 

Hamilton,  Sir  Robert,  on  giving 
quarter  at  Drumclog  [Wodrow, 
iii.  70  n.],  266. 

Hamilton,  William,  of  Bangour, 
287. 

Hamilton,  Sir  WilUam,  10  ;  his 
death,  308. 

Hammond,  Col.  Robert,  Crom- 
well writes  to,  245. 

Hampden,  John,  death  of,  at 
Chalgrove  Field,  234,  235. 

Hampole,  Richard  Rolle  of,  146; 
account  of,  342,  343. 

Hannington,  10. 

Hannington,  Bishop,  331  ;  death 
of  [Dawson,  443],  343  ;  his  Diary 
quoted  [Dawson,  440,  441],  343. 

Harding,  Master,  Lady  Jane  Grej' 
writes  to,  154. 

Harding,  Stephen,  founder  of  the 
Cistercians,  65  ;  account  of 
[Life,  in  Newman,  vol.  i.], 
88,  89. 

Hare,  Julius,  death  of,  298,  299. 

27 


Harold  of  England,  father  of 
Gytha,  97. 

Harvie,  Marion,  death  of  [Wod- 
row, iii.  277  ;  Cloud  of  Wit- 
nesses, 135  seq.],  261,  276. 

Haslerigg,  Sir  Arthur,  governor 
of  Newcastle,  Cromwell  writes 
to  [Carlyle,  iii.  30],  248. 

Hatton  Garden,  Irving's  chapel 
in,  301. 

Haughton,  Sir  Gilbert,  his  son 
killed  at  Marston  Moor,  234. 

Haughton,  John,  prior  of  the 
Charterhouse,  account  of 
[Froude,  ii.  342-362],  135,  136, 
140. 

Havelock,  Henry,  356;  at  Jella- 
labad,  356  ;  death  of,  357. 

HazUtt,  William,  conversations 
with     James     Northcote,     312, 

313- 

Headrigg,  Mause  (Old  Mortality), 
262. 

Heine,  Heinrich,  quoted,  1  ;  and 
Psalm  cxxxvii.  [Romanzero, 
book  iii.,  Jehuda  Ben  Halevy, 
ii. ;  Werke,  xviii. ;  and  Letter  to 
Moser,  Werke,  xix.,  p.  71],  203. 

Helena,  The  Empress,  her  "  in- 
vention "  of  the  True  Cross, 
82. 

Henry  11.  of  England,  and 
Becket,  79. 

Henry  11.  of  France,  and  Marot 
[Douen,  i.  709  ;  Bordier,  viii., 
ix.],  148,  178. 

Henry  iv.  of  England,  81. 

Henry  iv.  of  France  (Henry  of 
Navarre),  10,  149  ;  and  the 
Huguenots,  190,  191,  194,  196, 
197;  Metezeau  dedicates  version 
of  the  Psalter  to,  200. 

Henry  iv.  of  Germany,  at  Canossa 
[Bowden's  Gregory  VII.,  ii. 
174  ;     Montalembert,     v.    364], 

77- 
Henry  v.  of  England,  10,  86. 
Henry   vii.   of    England,    landing 

at  Milford  Haven,  278. 
Henry  viii.  of  England,  divorces 

Queen  Catherine,  132  ;   marries 

Anne  Boleyn,  132. 


404 


INDEX 


Herbert,  George,  7  ;  and  Francis 
Bacon  [Walton,  ed.  1866,  269  ; 
Bacon's  Works],  171,  175  ; 
account  of  [Walton,  273,  307], 

175.  ly^- 
Herder,  Johann  Gottfried,  7. 
Herefrith,    abbot   of   Lindisfarne, 

cited  [Bede's  5/.  Cuthberi,  chaps. 

xxxvii.-xl.],  59. 
Herles-how,  hill  of,  91. 
Hcrmon,  hill  of,  83. 
Hexham,  Wilfrid  at,  68,  69. 
Higginson,     Francis,     teacher    at 

Salem  [Wonder-Working  Provi- 
dence], 224. 
Hilarion,  22,  24. 
Hilary,  St.,  bishop  of  Poitiers,  28; 

church  of,  at  Poitiers,  73. 
Hildebrand    (Pope   Gregory   vii.), 

10  ;       account     of       [Bowden  ; 

Montalembert,  vol.  v.],  76,  77. 
"Hill  Folk,  The,"  261. 
Hind  Let  Loose,    The,   engravings 

of  Covenanter  martyrs  in,  276. 
Hippo,  death  of  St.  Augustine  at 

[Bright's  Fathers,  ii.  306  ;   Pos- 

sidius],  17. 
Hobbs,  abbot  of  Woburn,  189. 
Hoffmann,  Aug.   Heinr.  von  Fal- 

lersleben,   quoted   [Fundgruben, 

pt.  i.,  p.  3],  47. 
Hogg,   James   (the  Ettrick   Shep- 
herd), his  bo3^hood,  315. 
Hohenstaufen,  the,  at  Salerno,  76. 
Holbein,    Hans,    his    portrait    of 

Fisher     [Woltmann,     p.      313], 

134- 
Home,    Grizell,    daughter    of    Sir 

Patrick,  273. 
Home,  Lady,  273. 
Home,  Sir  Patrick,   of   Polwarth, 

273- 

Honorius,  The  Emperor,  and  the 
taking  of  Rome  [Procopius, 
Bell.  Vandal,  i.  2  ;  Gibbon, 
chap,  xxix.},  41. 

Hooker,  Richard,  cited  [Eccl.  Pol., 
book  v.,  chap,  xxxix.  1],  152; 
his  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  175  ; 
quoted  [book  v.,  chap,  xxxvii. 
2],  175,  177  ;  his  death  [Wal- 
ton, ed.  1866,  p.  213],  175. 


Hooper,  John,  bishop  of  Wor- 
cester ;  account  of  [Later 
Writings,  Parker  Society,  and 
Introduction],  140,  142  ;  quoted 
[ibid.,  xxxii.  176,  373,  294-295, 
583,  584].  140,  141. 

Hooper,  Anne,  wife  of  the  pre- 
ceding, 141. 

Hopkins,  John,  translator  of  the 
Psalms,  149,  150. 

Horn,  Count,  friend  of  Egmont, 
account  of  [Motley,  pt.  iii., 
chaps,  i.,  ii.],  158-1G1. 

Horner,  the  martyr  [Southwell, 
ed.  Grosart,  p.  52],  144. 

Hortensius  of  Cicero,  the,  in- 
fluences Augustine  [Conf.,  in. 
iv.],  35- 

Howard,  John,  331  ;  account  of 
[J.  B.  Brown,  Memoirs'],  323, 
324,  325  ;  his  Diary  quoted 
[ibid.,  270],  324,  325  ;  prepara- 
tions for  his  last  journey  [ibid., 
592,  593].  325- 

Hugh  of  Cluni  [Vita,  apud  Migne, 
chx.  867],  66. 

Hugh  of  Kirkstall.     See  Kirkstall. 

Hugo,  Victor,  his  LSgende  des 
Sidcles  quoted  (xxvi..  La  Rose 
de  ITnfante),  167. 

Hugon,  Le  Roi,  187. 

Huguenotes,  utensils  so  called,  186. 

Huguenots,  the,  181  seq.  ;  houses 
of,  186  ;  Marseillaise  of,  84,  186  ; 
persecutions  of,  190  seq.,  217 
seq.  ;  poetry  of,  186  ;  proverbs, 
etc.,  concerning,  187,  188,  193, 
196. 

Huguenot  seal,  device  on,  181. 

Humboldt,  Alexander  von,  10 ; 
quoted,  304. 

Huns,  the,  invasion  of,  43. 

Hunter,  his  Diary  during  siege  of 
Londonderry  quoted  [Walker, 
cd.  Dwyer,  p.  200],  281. 

Hus,  John,  10,  117;  death  of ,  118. 

Hypatia,  the  murder  of,  19. 

Iley,  Alfred  at,  69. 

Imitatio     Christi,     the     (and     see 

Thomas    d    Kcmpis),     103-105, 

307- 


I 


INDEX 


405 


Indians,    South    American,    Allen 

Gardiner  and  the,  338. 
Ingliston,    cave   at    [Wodrow,   iv. 

243].  276. 
lona,  Columba  at  [Montalembert, 

iii.  37,  etc.],  56  ;  importance  of, 

58. 
Ireland,  Cromwell  in,  245. 
Iris  river,  in  Pontus,  24. 
Irongray,  Minister  Welsh  at,  259  ; 

M' Robin  hanged  at,  275. 
Irving,  Edward,  account  of,   301, 

303  ;    his  death,  303. 
Isidore,  Rule  of,  4G. 
Itala,    death    of    Livingstone    at 

[Last  Journals,  ii.  308;  Blaikie], 

342- 
Ivan  the  Terrible,  86. 

James  i.  of  England,  7  ;  his 
version  of  the  Psalter,  151, 
226  ;  and  the  Scottish  Kirk, 
258. 

Jarnac,  Conde  killed  at  [Puaux, 
ii.  279],  193. 

Jarrow,  monastery  of,  68. 

Jellalabad,  siege  of,  356,  357. 

Jerome,  St.,  10  ;  account  of 
[Thierry],  26-28  ;  revises  Sep- 
tuagint  and  Psalms  [Thierry,  i. 
142],  26 ;  his  letter  to  Marcella 
[Thierry,  i.  350],  27  ;  on  the  boy- 
hood of  Origen,  15  ;  sails  for 
Palestine,  26  ;  on  the  taking  of 
Rome,  40  ;  quoted  by  Raleigh, 
168  ;  death  of,  27. 

Jerome  of  Prague,  9,  117  ;  his 
death,  118. 

Jerusalem,  Temple  at,  9  ;  taken 
by  Saladin,  84 ;  pilgrimages  to, 
84. 

Jesuits,  the,  199. 

Jewel,  Bishop,  cited  [Works,  ed. 
Jelf,  viii.  141],  150;  his  Apology, 
175  ;    his  death,  175. 

Jews,  the,  lamentation  over  Jerii- 
salem,  187. 

John  II.  of  France,  prisoner  in 
England,  202. 

John  VIII.,  Pope,  and  Cyril  and 
Methodius  [Stanley,  Eastern 
Church,  368  seq.],  46. 


John,  abbot  of  St.  Salvator,  and 
Anselm,  78. 

Johnson,  his  Wonder  -  Working 
Providence  quoted,  224. 

Johnson,  Dr.,  on  Law's  Serious 
Call  [Boswell,  ed.  Hill,  i.  68], 
292. 

Joinville,  Sire  de,  cited  [Hist,  de 
St.  Louis,  2™«  partie,  xv.],  100. 

Jonas,  Justus,  his  hymn,  147. 

Jones,  Philip,  quoted  [see  Ap- 
pendix A,  and  Turkey  mer- 
chantmen], 169. 

Jonson,  Ben,  his  Poetaster  quoted 
(Act.  v.,  sc.  i),  320. 

Jordan,  the  river,  83. 

Joyeuse,  Duo  de,  at  Courtras,  196. 

Julian,  the  Einperor,  and  Greg- 
ory Nazianzen,  38. 

Keble  John,  8,  292  ;  his  metrical 
Psalter  [see  Appendix  A,  chap. 
xi.],  296  ;  his  Christian  Year 
quoted,  296. 

Kempen,  103. 

Kempis,  Thomas  a,  8,  9  ;  account 
of,  66,  103-105  ;  his  Soliloquy 
of  the  Soul  [Kettlewell, 
Brothers,  i.  181  seq.],  104,  105. 

Ken,  Bishop,  7. 

Kennedy,  Jane,  and  Mary,  Queen 
of  Scots,  165. 

Kentigern,  venerated  as  St.  Mun- 
go  [Montalembert,  iii.  164], 
59  ;  recites  the  Psalter  [Life, 
by  Jocelyn,  xiv.,  Pinkerton,  ii. 
29],  59;  founder  of  Elw}^  [Mon- 
talembert, ii.  396],  59. 

Kethe,  William,  versiher  of  the 
Psalms,  150,  151  ;  his  "All 
people  that  on  earth  do  dwell," 

151- 

Kettering,  the  "  Particular  Bap- 
tists "  founded  at,  330. 

Kherson  (Cherson),  St.  Vladimir 
baptised  at,  97  ;  death  of  John 
Howard     at     [Memoirs,     629], 

32.5- 
Kidderminster,  Richard  Baxter  at 

[Orme,  i.  169  n.],  291,  292. 
Kieff,  baptisms  at,  97  ;    cathedral 

of  St.  Sophia  at,  39. 


4o6 


INDEX 


"Killing  Times,  The,"  273-278. 

King,  Bishop,  7. 

Kings,  the  Three.     See  Wise  Men 

of  the  East. 
Kingsley,  Charles,  quoted  [Letters 

and  Memories,  i.  292,  293],  299. 
Kingston,    Ethelred    crowned    at, 

71- 
Kirke,  Major-Gen.,  at  siege  of  Lon- 
donderry [Walker,   15th  June], 

281,  284. 
Kirk-o'-Field,  the,  described,  162  ; 

death  of  Darnley  at,  162-165. 
Kirkstall,  Hugh  of,  cited  (History 

of  Fountains).     See  Fountains, 

90  seq. 
Knox,   John,  introduces  Genevan 

Psalter     into     Scotland,     151  ; 

quoted,  252,  253,  254  ;  death  of, 

255- 
Koulikoff,  defeat  of  Tartars  at,  87. 
Kremlin,    the,    sermon   of   T^Ictro- 

politan  in,  352. 
Kruger,    Pre.sident,    quoted,    361, 

362,  363. 
Kussowrah,  William  Edwards  and 

the  Probyns  at,  358-360. 
Kyle,  Alexander  Peden  preaches 

in,  271. 

La  Chaise,  P6re,  211. 
Lacknacor,     stone    of,     Columba 

born  on,  55. 
Lady  Holland,  The,  wreck  of,  336, 

337- 
Laeghaire,  King,  and  St.  Patrick, 

51.  52. 
LaBta,  stepdaughter  of  Paula,  St. 

Jerome   addresses    his   treatise 

to  her,  26. 
La  Ferte,  monastery  of,  89. 
La  JonquiSre,   General,   defeated 

by  Camisards  at  the  Bridge  of 

Salindres,  216,  217. 
Lalande,  Marquis  de,  defeated  by 

the  Camisards,  217,  218. 
Lamartine,  Alphonse  de,  8. 
Lammermoor  hills,   Cuthbert  on, 

58. 
Lancaster,  Joseph,  323. 
Lancaster    Gaol,    John    Howard 

and  prisoners  in,  325. 


Lanfranc,  Archbishop,  and  Wil- 
liam the  Conqueror,  77,  78. 

Langcale,  Laird  of,  at  Tillietud- 
lem,  262. 

Langen  Schwalbach,   sundial  at, 

4- 

Langland,    84;     Piers     Plowman 

quoted,  109-111. 
Langrcs,  diocese  of,  88. 
Langton,     Stephen,     Archbishop 

of     Canterbury,     and     Magna 

Carta,  81. 
La  Noue  cited,  180. 
Laud,      Archbishop,      trial      and 

death,    228-233  \     his    Prayers 

quoted,  233,  234. 
Lauderdale  quoted,  264. 
Laval,  du  Chayla,  prior  of,  214. 
Law,     William,     292,     293  ;      his 

Serious  Call  quoted  [Works,  iv. 

148-149,  159],  292. 
Leake,     captain     of     The     Dart- 
mouth, 284. 
Lcclerc,  Jean,  death  of  [Crespin, 

p.  85],  188,  189. 
Lee,  General,  349. 
Lefdvi-e  d'Etaples,  translation  of 

the  Psalter,  188. 
Lcgnano,  battle  of,  80. 
Leguat,  Fran9ois,  on  the  island  of 

Rodrigucs     [see    Appendix    A, 

chap,  vii.],  181. 
Leighton,      Robert,      archbishop 

[Wodrow,  i.  237;    ii.  175],  259. 
Leignes  river,  88. 
Leith,  John  Durie  at,  256. 
Lennox,  Duke  of,  and  Durie,  25G. 
Leo,     St.,     and     Rome     [Gibbon, 

chap,  xxxvi.],  42. 
Leo    III.,    Pope,    crowns    Charle- 
magne, 75. 
Leo,     Brother,     cited     [Speculum 

Perfectionis,  chap,  iv.],  93. 
Leonides,       father      of       Origen 

[Thierry,    St.    Jerome,    i.    354], 

19- 
Lerins,  45,  67. 
Lerins,  Vincentius  of,  65. 
Les     Devois     de     Martignargues, 

battle  of  [Peyrat,  ii.  85],  216. 
Leslie,     Alexander,     Covenanter, 

258. 


INDEX 


407 


Leslie,  General  David,  defeated 
by  Cromwell  at  Dunbar,  246- 
248. 

Lestrange,    comrade   of    Coligny, 

193- 

Leyden,  Separatists  at,  223. 

Ligug^,  monastery  at,  29. 

Lille,  John  Howard  at  [Memoirs, 
418],  324. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  346  ;  ac- 
count of,  347-349  ;  assassina- 
tion of,  349. 

Lindisfarne,  Cuthbert  at,  58  ; 
Wilfrid  at,  68. 

Lindisfarne,  monastery  of,  68. 

Lindsay,  Sir  David,  translates  the 
Psalter,  253. 

Linnaeus,  inscription  on  his  lec- 
ture-room [Stoever,  269],  48. 

Livingstone,  David,  10,  329  ; 
buried  in  Westminster  Abbey 
[Personal  Life,  452-455],  326; 
account  of,  and  death  [Blackie's 
Personal  Life  ;  Last  Journals,  ii. 
308],  340-342. 

Llancarvan,  monaster}-  at  [Mon- 
talembert,  ii.  406],  61. 

Locke,     John,     10  ;      his     death, 

304- 

Locraenach,  monastery  of,  99. 

Londonderry.     See  Derry. 

Longjumeau,  treaty  of  [Crottet, 
302],  191. 

Lorraine,  Schuch  in,  191. 

Louis  IX.  (St.),  10,  95  ;  account 
of,  and  death  [Martin,  iv.  326- 
330  ;   Perry's  St.  Louis],  100. 

Louis  XIII.  and  Godeau,  200. 

Loviise  of  Savoy,  regent  of 
France,  188. 

Loup,  St.,  saves  Troyes  [Alban 
Butler,  24th  July],  42  ;  in  Brit- 
ain.    See  Lupus  {infra),  60. 

"  Loj'alty  House  "  (Basing 
House)    [Carlyle,    Cromwell,    i. 

213].  244- 

Lozere,  caves  of,  186. 

Lucknow,  relief  of,  357,  360. 

Ludlow,  Col.  Edmund,  his  inter- 
view with  Cromwell  [Carlyle, 
iii.  5],  246. 

Lundy,  Col.,  at  Londonderry,  279. 


Lupus,    of    Troyes    (and    see    5^. 

Loup),     in     Britain     [Bede,     I. 

xvii.  and  xx.],  60. 
Luther,  Martin,  10,  118,  119,  123; 

writes   to    Ludwig  Seuffel,   16  ; 

account  of,  123,  129;  his  hymns, 

147. 
Lutterworth,  death  of  Wyclif  at, 

115- 

Luynes,  at  Montauban,  207. 

Lj^dd,  Church  of  SS.  Crispin  and 
Crispinian  at  [Hasted's  Kent, 
iii.  514].  13- 

Lj'ons,  Wilfrid  at,  68. 

Lyons,  gulf  of,  Vincent  de  Paul 
captured  in,  201. 

Lyttelton,  Lord,  on  Law's  Seri- 
ous Call,  292. 


Macao,  Camoens  at,  202. 

Macarius,  Rule  of,  45. 

Macaulay,  Lord,  his  epitaph  on 
Henry  Martyn  quoted,  335. 

MacBriar,  Ephraim  [Old  Mor- 
tality), Hugh  M'Kail  prototype 
of,  263. 

Machadodorp,  President  Kruger's 
dispatches  from,  362. 

M'Kail,  Hugh,  261,  263,  275  ;  death 
of  [Wodrow.ii.  53,  58,  59n.1,263, 
264. 

Macka}',  Alexander  Murdoch,  10. 

Mackenzie,  quoted  on  siege  of 
Londonderry,  285. 

Maclachlan  (M'Lauchlison),  Mar- 
garet, death  of  [Wodrow,  iv. 
248,  249],  277.  278. 

Ai'Michael,  t)aniel,  death  of 
[Wodrow,  iv.  239,  240],  275. 

M' Robin,  Alexander,  death  of 
[Wodrow,  iv.  240],  275. 

Maes-Garmon,  battle  of  [Bede,  I. 
xvii.,  XX.],  60. 

Magnus,  Albertus,  8,  loi. 

Magus  Moor,  murder  of  Arch- 
bishop Sharp  on,  276. 

Maine  de  Biran,  304  ;  account 
of,  306-30S. 

Maintenon,  Madame  de,  211. 

Maistre,  Joseph  de,  account  of, 
304-306;  quoted,  306. 


4o8 


INDEX 


Male,  William  von,  friend  of 
Charles  v.,  126. 

Mainai,  defeated  at  Koulikoff,  87. 

Manichees,  the,  Augustine  and 
[Conf.,  III.  v.;  IX.  iv.],  35,  38. 

Manning,  Cardinal,  quoted  [Pur- 
cell's  Life,  i.  68],  297. 

Mantes,  William  the  Conqueror 
killed  at,  96. 

Marazion,  Henry  Martyn  at,  333. 

Marcella,  letter  of  Paula  and 
Eustochium  to,  14  ;  her  com- 
munity on  the  Aventine 
[Thierry,  St.  Jerome,  i.  29, 
350],  25,  26,  27,  28  ;  letter  of 
Jerome  to,  27,  28. 

March,  Earl  of,  81. 

Margaret,  Countess  of  Pem- 
broke.    See  Pembroke. 

Margaret,  Countess  of  Richmond. 
See  Richmond. 

Marguerite  do  Valois,  and  Marot, 
148. 

Marillac,  Michel  de,  versifier  of 
the  Psalter,  200. 

Marmoutier,    monastery    of,    29, 

125. 

Marot,  Clement,  and  Charles  v., 
125  ;  his  sancies  chart sonnettes 
[Bordier,  viii.,  ix.  ;  Douen,  i. 
709],  148,  149  ;  his  version  of 
the  Psalms  [Douen,  i.  289], 
182-185,  200  ;  his  version  of 
the  Psalms  prohibited,  190, 
200;  Francis  i.  and,  188. 

Marston  Moor,  battle  of,  237. 

Martin,  St.,  of  Tours,  church  of, 
6g  ;  account  of  [Newman's 
Historical  Sketches,  ii.  186-190, 
203  ;  Baring-Gould,  nth  Nov- 
ember], 28,  29. 

Martin,  Sarah,  325. 

Martyn,  Henry,  327,  329,  331  ; 
account  of  [Kaye's  Indian 
Officers,  i.  459  seq.  ;  Sargent's 
Memoir'],  331,  335;  his  Journal 
quoted  [Journal,  i.  67,  162,  145, 
152],  333.  334.  335.  338. 

Martyrs,  hymn  of  (Augustine's) 
[sermo  ccclxvi.],  12. 

Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  10  ;  and 
Darnley,    161-165  ;     death   of. 


165,  166  ;    lines  written  before 

execution,  166. 
Mary  i.,  Queen  of  England,  161. 
Mar}'  II.,  Queen  of  England,  279. 
Masham,  Sir   Francis   and   Ladj, 

304- 
Mather,   Cotton,   versifier  of   the 

Psalms,  225. 
Maurice,  the  Emperor,    death   of 

[Gibbon,  chap,  xlvi.],  13,  268. 
Mayenne,  Due  de,  196,  207. 
Mayflower,  The,  224. 
Mazel,         Camisard         historian, 

quoted,  218. 
Meaux,  Leclerc,  wool-comber  of, 

189  ;   the  prisoners  of  [Crespin, 

p.  169],  189. 
Mediaeval  art,  Jerome  in  [Thierry, 

ii.  243],  28. 
Mediaeval  science,  102. 
Mekong  river,  Camoens  at,  202. 
Mclancthon,   10,    119  ;    death   of, 

123;  and  Luther,  124. 
Melrose,  Cuthbert  at,  58. 
Melville,  Andrew,  255  ;    death  of, 

256. 
Melville,    James,    quoted    [Diary, 

22,  27],  255  ;    death  of  [Diary, 

xxviii.  seq.l,  257. 
Metezcau,    Jean,   versifier  of   the 

Psalms,  200. 
Methodists,  the,  289,  295. 
Methodius  and  Cyril,  translation 

of     the     Bible     in     Sclavonic 

[Stanley's  Eastern  Church,  368 

seq.],  46. 
Metz,  Jean  Leclerc  dies  at,  189. 
Michel    Angelo,     his    picture    of 

Savonarola,  122. 
Milan,  death  of  Ambrose  at,  18  ; 

Council  of,  30  ;  Theodosius  and 

Ambrose  at,  32  ;   Augustine  at, 

34.  38. 
Milbourne,     Luke,    versifies    the 

Psalms,  7. 
Milford  Haven,  landing  of  Henry 

VII.  at,  278. 
Milton,  7  ;    versifies  the  Psalms, 

235  ;   the  Psalms  in  his  poetry, 

235.  237- 
"Mirror    for    Magistrates,    The" 
(Psalm  ci.),  171. 


INDEX 


409 


Moir,  David  Macbeth,  quoted 
("  Night  Hymn  of  the  Cameron- 
ians  "),  265. 

Molesme,  monastery  of,  88. 

Monasticism,  spread  of,  22,  29  ;  in 
Rome,  22  ;  in  Gaul,  28  ;  in 
Western  Europe,  46. 

Monica,  or  Monnica,  death  of 
[Aug.  Conf.,  ix.  12],  17. 

Monkton  Farleigh,  Bishop  Jewel 
dies  at,  175. 

Monmouth,  Duke  of,  and  Cargill, 
268. 

Montaigne  quoted  [Essays,  I.  Ivi.], 
199,  200. 

Montauban,  180  ;  siege  of,  207, 
208  ;    Rochette  at,  220. 

Montcontour,  battle  of,  Coligny 
wounded  at  [Douen,  i.  13  ; 
d'Aubigne,  I.  v.,  xvi.],  193. 

Monte  Cassino,  founded  by  Bene- 
dict, 45. 

Montpellier,  death  of  Benezet  at, 
220. 

Montrose,  psalm-singing  intro- 
duced at,  255. 

Moors,  the,  in  Spain,  82. 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  119  ;  Luther 
on  [Table-talk,  dcclxix.],  128  ; 
account  of  [Bridgett],  131-133, 
140. 

Morimond,  monastery  of,  89. 

Moscow,  threatened  by  Tartars, 
87  ;  Napoleon  at,  352  ;  Metro- 
politan of,  his  sermon,  352. 

Mouchard,  187. 

Mountjoy,  Lord,  279. 

Mountjoy,  The,  at  siege  of  London- 
derry [Walker,  30th  July],  284, 
285. 

MuUa,  the  white  stag  of,  52. 

Mungo,  St.,  of  Glasgow  (Kenti- 
gern),  59. 

Miintzer,  Thomas,  152. 

Musselburgh,  Cromwell  at,  246. 

Mutiny,  the  Indian,  357-361. 

Mwanga,  King,  and  Bishop  Han- 
nington  [Dawson,  440],  343. 

Myers,  Frederick,  309. 

Nancy,  Schuch  burned  at,  188. 
Nantes,    Edict  [of ,    197,    199;   re- 


voked [Puaux,  vi.  87  seq.'], 
211,  212, 213. 

Napoleon,  at  Moscow,  352. 

Napoleon  iii.,  and  Revolution  of 
1848,  353- 

Naseby,  battle  of  [Carl^'le,  Crom- 
well, i.  192],  244. 

Neander,  299. 

"  Neck-verse,  the,"  3. 

Nelson,  servant  to  Darnley,  164, 
165. 

Neot,  St.,  account  of  [Newman's 
English  Saints,  iii.  109-187], 
59  ;  recites  the  Psalter  daily 
[ibid.,  109,  no],  69. 

Nev.'man,  Caidinal,  292  ;  his 
Dream  of  Gerontius  quoted 
[Verses  on  Various  Occasions, 
323-370],  297,  298. 

Newport  (Monmouth),  St.  Woolos, 
61. 

Newton,  John,  292,  295. 

Nicasius,  bishop  of  Rheims,  his 
death,  41. 

Nicephorus,  Patriarch,  instructs 
Vladimir  [Palmer's  Disserta- 
tions, 92-93].  97.  98. 

Nicolai,  Philip,  his  hj'mn,  147. 

Niebelungenlied,  the,  42. 

"  Night  Hymn  of  the  Cameron- 
ians.  The,"  quoted,  265. 

Nisbet,  John,  death  of  [Wodrow, 
iv.  235  ;  Cloud  of  Witnesses,  466], 

275- 

Noailles,  Madame  de,  quoted 
[Duras,  Journal,  etc.,  192,  203], 
351  ;  death  of  [ibid.,  284-297], 
350. 

Noailles-Mouchy,  Due  de,  death  of 
[ibid.,  183],  350-351;  Mare- 
chale  de   [ibid.,  223,   224,  225], 

351- 
Nola,  Paulinus  dies  at,  18. 
Nonna,       mother       of        Gregory 

Nazianzen  [Ullmann,  17],  15,  16. 
Northcote,    James,   and    William 

Hazlitt,  312,  313;  quoted,   312, 

3I3- 

Noyers  [Puaux,  ii.  273],  191. 

"  O  Deus,  ego  amo  Tc  "  (Xavier's 
hymn),  translated,  137. 


4IO 


INDEX 


Odoacer  and  Severinus  [Monta- 
lenibert,  i.  374  ;  Gibbon,  chap, 
xxxvi.],  42,  43,  44. 

Oran,  capture  of,  86. 

Ordericus  Vitalis  quoted,  on  death 
of  William  the  Conqueror  [Hist. 
Eccles.,  VIII.,  xiv.  and  xvi.],  96. 

Origen,  9 ;  his  boyhood  [Thierry, 
5^  Jerome,  i.  354],  15,  19  ; 
account  of  [Thierry,  354-360], 
19,  20  ;  his  apostasy  and  re- 
morse [Epiphanius  Haer.,  Ixiv. 
2  ;  apud  Migne,  xli.  1072-1073], 
20. 

Orleans,  cathedral  of,  186. 

Orleans,  Duchess  of,  and  Jean 
Rousseau,  185,  186. 

Ormiston,  Wishart  at,  254. 

Orthez,  bridge  of,  186. 

Ostia,  Augustine  and  Monica  at, 
16. 

Oundle,  Wilfrid  dies  at,  69. 

Oxford  University,  motto  of,  3. 

Padua,   St.   Fran9ois  de  Sales  at, 

204. 
Paiges,  Sebastian,  court  musician 

to  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  163. 
Palissy,      Bernard,      account      of 

[Morley,  II.  242-246  ;    Palaysi, 

36,  37],  182. 
Pambo    [Socrates,    Eccles.    HisL, 

IV.  xxiii.],  24. 
Paraclete,  the,  oratory  of,  98. 
Parker,  Archbishop,  7  ;    his  Diary 

quoted,     149  ;      falls    from    his 

horse    [Strype,   book    i.,    chap. 

vii.],    149  ;     his    translation    of 

the  Psalms,  149. 
"  Particular  Baptist  Society,  The," 

founded  at  Kettering,  330. 
Pascal,    Blaise,    7,    8,    9  ;    quoted 

[Pcnsees,    XXIII.    viii.  ;     XIV. 

vii.],  209,  210,  307. 
"Pastors  of  the  Desert,  The"  [see 

Appendix  A,  chap,  viii.],  218  seq. 
Paterson,     Bishop,     and     Marion 

Harvie     [Cloud    of     Witnesses  ; 

Wodrow,  iii.  277],  276. 
Patrick,    St.,   at   Tara   [Tripartite 

Life,  i.  41  seq. ;  ii.  455  ;  O'Han- 

lon,  hi.  554  seq.],  50,  51. 


Pattcson,  Bishop,  331. 

Paul  and  Silas  at  Pliilippi,  6. 

Paul  III.,  Pope,  128  ;  creates 
Fisher  a  cardinal,  135. 

Paula  (the  elder),  account  of,  and 
death  [Thierry,  St.  Jerome,  i.  32, 
159,  160,  225-310,  312,  335  ; 
ii.  85-88],  25,  26,  27,  28  ;  and 
Eustochium,  letter  to  Marcella 
[Thierry,  i.  350  ;  Pal.  Pilgrims' 
Text  Society,  vol.  i.],  14. 

Paula  (the  younger)  [Thierrj',  ii. 
61,  241],  25,  28. 

Paulina,  daughter  of  Paula  the 
elder  [Tliierry,  i.  159,  ibo],  25. 

Paulinus,  Bisliop  of  Nola,  death  of 
[Bright's  History,  334],  18. 

Pavia,  Charlemagne  at,  74  ;  battle 
of,  188. 

Peden,  Alexander,  261  ;  quoted 
[Six  Saints,  i.  70,  etc.],  267,  269, 
271,  278  ;  account  of  [5r;r 
Saints],  269-272  ;  specimens  of 
his  preaching  [Six  Saints,  i.  59  ; 
i.  90],  271-272. 

Pelican,  tiie,  as  the  symbol  of 
Christ,  3. 

Pembroke,  Margaret,  Countess 
of,  7  ;  translates  Psalms,  168. 

Penitential  Psalms,  the  (i.e.  vi., 
xxxii.,  xxxviii.,  Ii.,  cii.,  cxxx., 
cxhii.),  Augustine  [Possidius,  31], 
18  ;  Dante  [Gardner's  Dante, 
40],  105  ;  Fisher  [Bridgett, 
106],  134;  Spenser  [Works,  ed. 
Payne  Collier,  i.,  Ixxv.,  cd.  Todd, 
i.,  clxxi.  n.],  168. 

Pentland  Rising,  the,  account 
of  [Wodrow  ;  Blackader,  5/^ 
Saints],  262,  263. 

Pepin,  of  France,  74. 

Persecution,  of  Diocletian,  12  ;  of 
Severus,  19. 

Peru,  invasion  of,  b}'  the  Span- 
iards, 1 29-1 31. 

Peters,  Hugh,  quoted  [Carlyle, 
Cromwell,  i.  213],  245. 

Philip  I.  of  France,  96. 

Philip  II.  of  Spain,  and  the  Nether- 
lands [Motley,  pt.  iii.,  chap,  i., 
etc.],  157. 

Phillips,  Edward,  quoted,  150. 


I 


INDEX 


411 


Phocas,  and  the  Emperor  Maurice, 

13- 

Phoenix,  The,  at  the  siege  of  Lon- 
donderry, 284. 

Pico  della  Mirandola,  quoted  [See- 
bohm,  117],  131  ;  account  of 
[Seebohm,  9  ;  Villari,  1-77,  88, 

.244].  131- 

Picton  Island,  Commander  Gar- 
diner at  [Marsh's  Memoir,  ^48], 
338. 

Piers  Plowman.      See  Langland. 

Pilgrim,  the  Bordeaux  [Thierry,  i. 
36],  26,  82. 

Pilgrim  Fathers,  the,  224. 

Pilgrimages,  82,  83  ;   satirised,  83. 

Pitman  Dr.,  his  school,  Cowper 
at,  311. 

Pitt,  William,  friend  of  Wilber- 
force  [Life,  passim],  295. 

Plymouth,  U.S.A.,  224. 

Poissy,  Henry  of  Navarre  at,  194. 

Poitiers,  29,  73. 

Poitiers,  Diane  de.     See  Diane. 

Poitou,  Bas-,  wolves  called  "  Sou- 
bises  "  in,  187. 

Polwarth,   Sir   Patrick   Home   at, 

273- 

Pont  de  Montvert,  affair  of 
[Peyrat,  i.  287  seq.],  214,  215. 

Pontigny,  monastery  of,  89. 

Pope,  his  "  Eloise  to  Abelard  " 
quoted,  99. 

Port  Royal,  abbey  of,  209,  210. 

Port-Royalists,  the,  199,  211. 

Possidius,  biographer  of  Augus- 
tine, quoted  [Vita,  31st  August], 

17- 

Prague  and  Wyclif,  117. 

Prague,  Jerome  of.     See  Jerome. 

"  Praying  Indians,"  Eliot's,  326. 

Pre-aux-clercs,  the,  149. 

Prelacy,  Scottish  feeling  against, 
252.  275. 

Prestonpans,  death  of  Col.  Gar- 
diner at  [Doddridge,  179   seq.], 

343- 
Primers,  mediaeval,  146. 
Prison  reform,  323,  324. 
Privas,  186. 
Probyn,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  and  their 

children,  358,  360. 


Procopius  cited  [Bell,  GoUh.,  iv. 
20],  61. 

Prosni,  widow,  at  La  Rochelle 
[Puaux,  v.  187  seq.],  208-209, 

Psalms,  the,  the  early  Christians 
and  [Palmer's  Dissertations,  285 
seq.],  12,  13;  antiphonal 
chanting  of,  introduced  by 
Ambrose,  18  ;  revised  by 
Jerome,  26  ;  Athanasius' 
Exposition  and  Titles,  30 ; 
Methodius  and  Cyril  translate, 
46  ;  in  monastic  Ufe,  48,  64  ; 
recited  by  Kentigern,  59;  by 
St.  Neot,  69  ;  by  pilgrims,  83  ; 
by  Stephen  Harding  [New- 
man, i.  12],  88;  Wilfrid  and, 
66  ;  Savonarola  on,  122,  123  ; 
Luther  and,  123,  131  ;  I3ishop 
Hooper  on,  141  ;  Council  of 
Toulouse  and,  146  ;  Prayer 
Book  version  of,  146  ;  in 
pubhc  worship,  147,  180,  255  ; 
Huguenots  and,  181  seq.  ; 
Calvin  introduces  chanting  at 
Geneva,  183  ;  Antoine  Ar- 
nauld  and,  210  ;  singing  of,  in 
Scotland,  256  ;  translation  in 
Persian,  335. 

Psalms,  metrical  versions  of, 
Addison,  310  ;  Ainsworth,  224  ; 
Bacon,  171  ;  Barlow,  225  ; 
Baxter,  292  ;  Beza,  183,  184, 
200 ;  Blackmore,  8  ;  Brj^- 
ant,  225  ;  Buchanan,  253  ; 
Calvin,  182,  183  ;  Cartyle, 
125;  Corneille,  200;  Craig, 
150,  151  ;  Daye,  149  ;  Des- 
portes,  204  ;  Dwight,  225  ;  Eliot, 
325;  Ehzabeth,  Queen,  161, 
172;  Fletcher,  174;  Godeau, 
200 ;  Heine,  203 ;  Hopkins, 
149,  150;  James  i.,  151,  171; 
Keble,  296  ;  Kethe,  150,  151  ; 
Lindsay,  262  ;  Luther,  125  ; 
Marillac,  200  ;  Marot,  125, 
148,  178,  180  seq.,  200;  Mather, 
225  ;  Metezeau,  200  ;  Mil- 
bourne,  7  ;  Milton,  235  ;  Par- 
ker, 149  ;  Pembroke,  Countess 
of,  168  ;  Racine,  200  ;  Rous, 
15I'   345  ;    Sandys,    7  ;   Sidney, 


412 


INDEX 


Sir  Philip,  169  ;  Spenser,  168, 
171  ;  Sternhold,  149 -151  ; 
Surrey,  Earl  of,  172  ;  Tate, 
150  ;  Waldis,  147  ;  Wedder- 
burns,  the,  253  ;  Whittingham, 
150  ;  Wisedome,  150  ;  Wyatt, 
171. 

Psalter,  battle  of  the  [Montalem- 
bert,  iii.  20-26],  56. 

Puertocarrero,  Tomas  de  [Stirling- 
Maxwell,  Charles  V.,  323],  126. 

Quercy,  Fran9ois  Rochette  in, 
220. 

Rabec,    Jean,  death   of   [Crespin, 

p.  374],  190. 
Rabelais     at     Liguge     [see     Ap- 
pendix A],  29. 
Racine  translates  the  Psalter,  200. 
Raikcs,  Robert,  323. 
Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  168  ;    quoted 

[Hist,    of   the    World,    book   ii., 

chap,  xvii.],  168. 
Rang,     Louis,     218  ;      death     of 

[Peyrat,  ii.  405],  219. 
Regent    Square,    Edward    Irving 

in,  301. 
"  Reign  of  Terror,  The,"  350. 
Religion  in  the  eighteenth  century, 

286-290. 
"  Remnant,  The,"  261,  2G7. 
Remond,    Florimond    de,    quoted 

[see  Douen,  i.  3],  179,  221. 
Remy,  St.,  blesses  Clovis,  73. 
Renard,  Spanish  ambassador,  154. 
Renard,  Rues  du,  187. 
Renwick,    James,    261  ;     account 

of       [Wodrow,       iv.      446-454  ; 

Cloud    of    Witnesses,    483    seq.l, 

274.  275- 
Revolution,  the  French,  and  Irv- 

ing's  preaching,  301. 
Reynard  the  Fox,  84. 
Rhe,  island  of,  208. 
Riccio,  David,  161,  163. 
Richard  i.  at  the  Crusades,  85. 
Richard,   prior  and  sacrist  of  St. 

Mary's,     York,     90    seq.  ;     first 

abbot  of  Fountains,  91. 
Richelieu,   Cardinal    dc,   198,  205, 

208. 


Richelieu,  Due  de,  221. 

Richmond,  Margaret,  Countess 
of,  and  Bishop  Fisher,  134. 

Ridley,  Bishop,  140  ;  death  of 
[Fox,  1555],  142. 

Rievaux,  Abbey  of,  founded,  90. 

Ripon,  abbey  of,  68,  69,  91. 

Robert,  abbot  of  Molesme,  88. 

Rocamadour,  pilgrimages  to,  84. 

Rochelle,  La,  180,  193  ;  siege  of 
[Puaux,  v.  180  seq.  ;  and  see 
Appendix  A,  chap,  viii.],  195, 
207-209. 

Rochester,  Earl  of,  quoted,  150. 

Rochette,  Fran9ois,  account  of 
[Peyrat,  ii.  435],  220-221. 

Rodrigues,  island  of,  Francois 
Leguat  at,  181. 

Roger,  Jacques,  death  of  [Pey- 
rat, ii.  406],  219,  220. 

Rogers,  Samuel,  his  Italy  quoted, 
81. 

Rohan,  Henri,  Due  de  [see 
Appendix  A,  chap,  viii.],  198, 
207,  208. 

Roland,  Camisard  leader  [Peyrat, 
ii.  91  seq.'],  217. 

RoUe,  Richard,  of  Hampole,  146. 

Romanes,  G.  J.,  10  ;  quoted. 
310. 

Rome,  monasticism  in,  25  seq.  ; 
taken  by  Alaric  [Gibbon,  chap. 
xxxi.],  41;  Anselm  at,  78; 
pilgrimages  to,   84. 

Romney  Marsh,  13. 

Roper,  Margaret,  133. 

Rosscau,  Confessions  of,  8. 

Rostislaf,  98. 

Rouen,  death  of  William  the  Con- 
queror at,  96. 

Rous,  Francis,  his  version  of  the 
Psalter,  7,  151,  337. 

Rousseau,  Jean,  the  painter,  and 
the  Duchess  of  Orleans  [Douen, 
i.  21],  185,  180. 

Roxburgh's  Flora  Indica,  331. 

Royal  arms,  the,  supporters  of,  3. 

Rule  of  Antony,  45  ;  of  Basil,  45  ; 
of  Benedict  [Montalembert,  i. 
417  ;  Bened.  Regula],  45,  64, 
65,  67,  69,  70,  71  ;  of  Cister- 
cians  [Newman,   Life  of  Hard- 


1 


INDEX 


413 


ing,    chap,    xvii.],    88,    89  ;    of 

Isidore,   46 ;   of  Macarius,    46  ; 

of  Reformed  Carmelites,  139. 
Rullion    Green,    battle    at    [Wod- 

row,  ii.  30  seq.],  261,  262,  263; 

inscription  at,  263. 
Rump,  the,  247. 
Runjepoorah,    William    Edw^ards 

at,  35S. 
Rupert,      Prince,      at     Chalgrove 

Field,  234,  235. 
Ruskin     on     Sir     Philip     Sidney, 

169  ;     and    Carlyle,    318,     319, 

320  ;  account  of,  320,  322. 
Rye,  the  river,  90. 
Rye  House  Plot,  the,  272. 

Sachs,  Hans,  329. 

St.  Agnes'  Mount,   monastery  of, 

Thomas  a  Kempis  at,  8,  103. 
St.  Andrews,  Wishart  at,  254. 
St.  Angelo,  Gregory  vii.  a  prisoner 

in,  77. 
St.  ApolUnare  Nuovo,  church  of, 

at  Ravenna,  6. 
St.  Brelade's,  sundial  at,  4. 
St.    Germain-en-Laye,    treaty    of, 

194. 
St.    Gervais,    abbej^    of,    William 

the  Conqueror  dies  at,  96. 
St.  Gildas  de  Rhuj^s,  abbey  of,  98. 
St.    John,    Mrs.,    cousin   of   OUver 

Cromwell,  243. 
St.  Sophia,  cathedral  of,  at  Kieff, 

in.scription  [Hare's  Rtcssia,  447- 

450],  39- 
Saintes,  29  ;    Palissy  at,  182. 
Saladin,  Jerusalem  taken  by,  84. 
Salem,  U.S.A.,  Pilgrim  Fathers  at, 

224. 
Salerno,   tomb  of  Hildebrand  at, 

76. 
Sales,      St.      Fran9ois      de.      See 

Franfois. 
SaUndres,    bridge    of,    battle    at 

[Peyrat,  ii.  91  seq.],  217,  218. 
Salmasius,  10. 
San    Chan,    island    of,    death    of 

Xavier  at,  137,  138. 
Sanderson,      Robert,      bishop     of 

Lincoln,    account   of    [Walton], 

227,  228. 


Sandys,    George,   versifier   of   the 

Psalms,  7. 
San    Marco,   Savonarola    at,    120, 

121. 
San  Michele,  sundial  at,  4. 
Sanquhar,  "Declaration"  read  at, 

267. 
Saracen,   the  converted   [Gregory 

of      Decapolis,      Serm.      Hist., 

xxix.],  13. 
Savonarola,  119;   account  of  [see 

Appendix  A,  chap,  v.],  119-123  ; 

portraits  of,  119,  120. 
Scheffcr,     Ary,      his     picture     of 

Augustine  and  Monica,  17. 
Schlavia,  Anselm  at,  78. 
Scholastica,    St.,    sister   of    Bene- 
dict, 64. 
Schopp,     Caspar,     his     Classicum 

Belli  Sacri,  153. 
Schuch,     Wolfgang,     burned     at 

Nancy  [Crespin,  p.  88],  188,  189. 
Schwartz,  Christian  Friedrich,  his 

mission  church  at  Tranquebar, 

330. 
Science,  mediaeval,  99,  100. 
Scott,  Thomas,  292,  295. 
Scott,     Sir    Walter,     7  ;      quoted 

("  Marmion,"     II.     xvi.),      58  ; 

characters    in   his   novels,    262, 

313  ;    his  death  [Lockhart,  vii. 

389].  314- 
Scottish  Kirk,  the.     See  Charles  i. 

and  Charles  n. 
Scrooby,  Separatists  at,  223. 
Scrope,    Richard,    Archbishop    of 

Canterbury,    execution    of,    81, 

82. 
Seal,  old  Huguenot,  181. 
Seeker,    Archbishop,     quoted    by 

Boswell  \Works,  i.  223],  312. 
Secundrabagh,     "Quaker"     Wal- 
lace at  the,  360. 
Sedan,   capitulation  of,  354,  355  ; 

death    of   Andrew    Melville    at, 

256. 
Selwyn,      George,      and     Wilber- 

force  \Lije  of  Wilberforce,  i.  16], 

295- 
"  Separatists,    The,"    at    Scrooby 
[Arber,  p.  329],  223  ;  at  Leyden 
\ibid.'],  223. 


414 


INDEX 


Serampore,  William  Carey  at,  330. 
Sergius,  the  hermit,  87. 
Serlo,  the  monk,  history  of  Foun- 
tains, 90. 
Seuffel,  Ludwig,  correspondent  of 

Luther,  16. 
Severinus,  of  Noricum,  42. 
Severus,  persecution  of,  19. 
Sevigne,  Madame  de  [Letter  342, 

ed.  1838],  214. 
Shairp,  Principal,  quoted,  297. 
Shakespeare,   7  ;   quoted,    58,    85, 

150,    223,   232;   the   Psalms   in, 

172-174. 
Sharp,   James,  Archbishop  of  St. 

Andrews   [Wodrow,    iii.],    259  ; 

his  murder,  265. 
Sharpe,     Granville,     colleague    of 

Wiiberforce,  295. 
Sherborne,    Stephen    Harding   at, 

88. 
Shiraz,  Henry  Martyn  at,  333,  334. 
Shrewsbury,    Earl   of,   and   Mary, 

Queen  of  Scots,  165. 
Sidney,    Sir    Philip,    7,    168  ;     his 

translation  of  the  Psalms,  169. 
Sidonius  ApoUinaris  cited,  14. 
Siena,  Spinello's  frescoes  at,  80. 
Sigismund  at  Council  of  Constance, 

117. 
Silvia,     mother    of    Gregory    the 

Great  [Greg.  Vita,  iv.  83  ;   apud 

Migne,  Ixxv.  230],  62. 
Silvia  of  Aquitaine  [see  Appendix 

A,  chap,  iv.],  83. 
Simeon,  Charles,  295. 
Simonoff  monastery,  87. 
Simpson,  Sir  James,  his  "  Mother's 

Psalm,"  308. 
Sion,  Hill  of,  83. 
Skell,  the  river,  91. 
Skene,    James,   Cargill's   letter   to 

[Cloud  of  Witnesses,  13],  269. 
Slave-trade,  abolition  of,  295,  296, 

323. 
Smith,    Sir   Harry,    quoted,    353  ; 

account  of,  353. 
Smith,   Sydney,   on  the   Baptists, 

330  ;    Carlyle  on,  345. 
Smith,  Sir  Thomas,  7. 
Soana,  Gregory  vii.  born  at,  76. 
Sobicski,  John,  wai'-cry  of ,  84,  180. 


Soissons,  Crispin  and  Crispinian 
at,  12. 

Sorbonne,  the,  and  Robert 
Estienne,  184  ;  and  Clement 
Marot,  188. 

Soubise  (Le  roi  des  Parpaillaux), 
187. 

Soubises,  Pierres  de  Soubise,  187, 
207. 

Southwell,  Robert,  140  ;  account 
of  [Works,  Introd.,  ed.  Grosart, 
xlix.-hx.],  143-145  ;  quoted 
[ibid.,  62,  84,  103,  ed.  Grosart, 
p.  Iii.],  143,  144. 

Spectator,  The,  quoted,  310. 

Speedwell,  The,  at  Delft  [Arber, 
329],  223. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  his  version  of 
the  Penitential  Psalms  [Works, 
ed.  Payne-Collier,  i.,  Ixxv.],  168. 

Spinello,  his  frescoes  at  Florence 
[Montalembert,  i.  410],  42  ;  at 
Siena,  80. 

Stael,  Madame  de,  and  Wiiber- 
force [Life  of  Wiiberforce,  iv. 
158,  167],  295. 

Stanley,  Dean,  liis  favourite 
psalm,  299. 

Stanley,  H.  M.,  finds  Livingstone, 
342. 

Steinach,  the.  Gall  at,  50. 

Stephen,  the  mart3'-r,  6. 

Sternhold,  Thomas,  149,  150. 

Stewart,  Sir  Thomas,  uncle  of 
Oliver  Cromwell  [Carlyle,  i.  81], 
242. 

Stoddart,  Colonel,  death  of,  at 
Bokhara,  355. 

Stones,  Druidic,  names  for,  in 
France,  187  ;  superstitions  con- 
cerning, in  S.W.  France  [see 
Appendix  A,  chap,  iv.],  11 1. 

Strada  cited  [de  Bello  Belgico, 
Libb.  iii.  and  v.],  180. 

Strafford,  Earl  of,  his  trial  and 
death,  228-232. 

Strasburg,  Bishop  Hooper  at,  140. 

Stridon,  birthplace  of  Jerome,  24. 

Suffolk,  Duke  of,  153  ;    execution 

of,  157- 
Sundials  [see  Appendix  A],  4. 
Sussex,  Wilfrid  in,  68. 


INDEX 


415 


Swift,  the,  Wyclif s  ashes  thrown 

into,  116. 
Symonds,  servant  to  Darnley,  164. 

Tabriz,  Henry  Martyn  at,  335. 

Tagns,  the,  passage  of,  86. 

Tanfield  Hall,  Chalmers  at  [Hanna, 
iv.  341],  300. 

Tanlay,  Coligny  at,  191,  192. 

Tarn,  the,  215. 

Tartars,  the,  in  Russia,  S7. 

Tasso,  death  of,  129. 

Tate,  Nahum,  150. 

Taylor,  page  to  Darnley,  164. 

Taylor,  Sir  Henry,  315. 

Taylor.  Jeremy,  226,  227  ;  quoted 
[Works,  vol.  XV.,  p.  97],  226. 

Telesia,  monastery  at,  78. 

Tellier,  Michel  le,  chancellor 
[Puaux,  vi.  87  seq.],  212,  213. 

Templars,  the,  battle-cry  of,  84. 

Tennyson,  his  "  Crossing  the  Bar," 
269  ;  quoted  ("  Rizpah  "),  316  ; 
on  Edward  Fitzgerald,  318. 

Teresa,  St.,  119  ;  account  of  [Cole- 
ridge, i.  4,  8;  ii.  362,  369-370], 

137-140- 
Thackera^^  Wm.,  Esmond  quoted, 

317- 

Thebaid,  the,  25. 

Theodore  the  Martyr  [Did.  Chris- 
tian Biography,  iv.  956],  13. 

Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  quoted, 
14. 

Theodosius,  The  Emperor,  and 
Ambrose  [Bright's  Fathers,  i. 
519;  Baunard,  448-456],  18,  33. 

Theodosius,  De  Situ  Term  Sanctis 
[see  Appendix  A,  chap,  iv.],  83. 

Theonas,  St.,  church  of  [Bright's 
Fathers,  i.  240  ;  History,  76, 
77  ;  Stanley's  Eastern  Church, 
283],  31. 

Thessalonica,  massacre  at,  33. 

Thomas,  "Little  Alphabet  of  the 
Monks,"  etc.  [see  Appendix  A, 
chap.  iv.  ;  Kettlewell,  ii.  119 
seq.],  104. 

Thomas,  Surgeon,  friend  of  Wil- 
liam Carey,  330. 

Thomas  Aquinas,  St.,  65. 

Thomas,  St.,  of  Villanova,  9. 


Thomson,    his    "Hymn"    quoted, 

48. 
Tiberius  11.,  13. 
Tierra  del  Fuego,  Allen  Gardiner 

at  [Marsh's  Memoir,  346],  338- 

340. 
Tillietudlem,  Laird  of  Langcale  at. 

262. 
Tohie,  The,  wreck  of  [see    Appen- 
dix A,  chap,  vi.],  170. 
Tokat,  Henry  Martyn  at,  335. 
Toledo,  Council  of,  48. 
Topcliffe,  the  executioner  [South- 
well, ed.  Grosart,  liv.],  143. 
Torba}',    landing    of    William    of 

Orange  at,  278. 
Torquemada,  177. 
Torwood,  Cargill  at,  268. 
Totila   and    Benedict    [Montalem- 

bert,  i.  410],  42. 
Toulouse,  Council  of,  146  ;    Roch- 

ette  at,  221. 
Tours,  Martin  at,  29  ;    Clovis  at, 

73  ;   Le  Roi  Hugon,  187. 
Tower  of  London,  the,  142. 
Tracy,  murderer  of  Becket,  79. 
Tranent,  Col.   James  Gardiner  at 

[Doddridge,  188],  344. 
Tranquebar,  church  at,  330. 
Treasure,  hidden,  superstitions  in 

S.W.  France  [see  Appendix  A, 

chap,  iv.].  III. 
Trent,  Council  of ,  175. 
Troves,  98. 
Tuliiver,     Maggie     {Mill     on     the 

Floss),  9. 
Tunis,  death  of  St.  Louis  at,  loi  ; 

Vincent  de  Paul,  slave  at,  201. 
Turkey     merchantmen,     the    five 

[see    Appendix    A,    chap,    vi.], 

169. 
Tur.stin,  Archbishop  of  York,  91. 
Tylney,     Elizabeth,     with     Lady 

Jane  Grey,  156. 
Tyndall,  his  version  of  the  Psalter, 

146. 
Tyrconnel,  Lord,  at  siege  of  Derry 

[Walker,  ed.  Dwyer],  279. 


Ujiji,  Livingstone  at   [Last  Jour- 
nals, ii.  155],  342. 


4i6 


INDEX 


Unyanyembe,       Livingstone       at 

[ibid.,  229],  342. 
Urban  11.,  Pope,  and  Anselm,  78. 
Uzes,  cathedral  at,  186. 

Valens,  The  Emperor,  and  Basil 
[Bright's  Fathers,  i.  373  ;  Greg. 
Naz.  or  at.,  xx.  xliii.],  32. 

Valladolid,  death  of  Columbus  at, 
129. 

Vassy,  massacre  at,  190. 

Vaudois,  the  [Monastier,  ii.  91, 
126  ;    Douen,  i.  23  n.],  212. 

Vaughan,  Henry,  the  Silurist,  7, 18. 

Vendee,  La,  insurrection  [Les 
Chouans,  ii.  135  seq.],  350. 

Venice,  Barbarossa  at,  80. 

Venn,  Henry,  292,  295. 

Victoria  Nyanza,  Lake,  Bishop 
Hannington  at,  342,  343. 

Vicnne  river,  Clovis  at,  73. 

Vihlla,  bell  of  [Stirhng-Maxwell's 
Charles  V.,  266],  126. 

Vinccnnes,  Madame  Guyon  at, 
198,  201. 

Vincent  de  Paul,  211  ;  account  of 
[Wilson,  18-22],  201-203. 

Vincentius  of  Lerins,  65. 

Virgilius,  Celtic  saint,  46. 

Vladimir,  St.,  baptism  of  [Stanley's 
Eastern  Church,  359  ;  Moura- 
vieff,  14,  15],  97. 

Vladimir  Monomachus,  10,  95  ; 
account  of  [Stanley's  Eastern 
Chiirch,  359;  'PaXmev's  Disserta- 
tions, 92-93  ;  Mouravieff,  31, 
3^'3].  97;  dying  injunctions  to 
his  son  [Karamsin,  ii.  203-209  ; 
Stanley,  372  seq.'],  98. 

Volksraads,  President  Kruger's 
speech  to  the,  362. 

Voltaire,  Henriade  quoted  [Chant. 
II.,  121-124],  192. 

Vougle,  battle  of,  73. 

Waldis,  Burkhard,  of  Hesse, 
versifies  Psalter,  147. 

Walker,  George,  at  siege  of  Derrj', 
279-285  ;  quoted  [cd.  Dwyer, 
20,  37],  280,  281,  282  ;  his 
sermon  [ed.  Dwyer,  105  seq.], 
282-284. 


Walker,  Patrick,  on  Prelacy, 
quoted  [Six  Saints,  ii.  4],  252  ;  his 
Six  Saints  quoted,  262,  266,  270. 

Wallace,  "Quaker,"  at  the  Secun- 
drabagh  [Forbes-Mitchell,  56], 
360. 

Wallace,  William,  95  ;  death  of 
[Tytler,  i.  279-280],  loi. 

Wallis,  Widow  (the  Particular 
Baptists  at  Kettering),  330. 

Walsingham,  pilgrimages  to,  83  ; 
Thomas  of  [Rolls  Series,  28,  lb., 
p.  119],  116. 

Walton,  Izaak,  his  Life  of  Sander- 
son quoted,  227-228. 

"  Walton,  young,"  killed  at  Mars- 
ton  Moor  [Carlyle,  Cromwell,  i. 
167],  244. 

"  Wanderers,  The,"  account  of, 
266. 

"  Wandering  Willie,"  his  saying 
[Redgaunilet,  Letter  xi.],  266. 

Waterloo,  Napoleon  at,  352,  353. 

Watts,  Isaac,  7,  344. 

Waverley,  Cistercians  at  [New- 
man's Saints,  v.  167  n.],  90. 

Wearmouth,  monastery  at,  68. 

Wedderburns,  the,  their  "  Spiritual 
Sanges,"  253  ;  quoted,  254. 

Welsh,  Mr.,  "  outed  "  minister,  at 
Irongray  [Blackadcr],  259. 

Welsh,  Jane  (Carlyle),  301  ; 
quoted,    355. 

Wesley,  Charles,  7,  294  ;  account 
of,  294  ;  death  of,  294  ; 
hymns  of,  294. 

Wesley,  John,  331  ;  and  Law's 
Serious  Call  [Journal,  i.  94], 
292  ;  account  of,  293,  294  ; 
death  of,  293  ;  his  Collection 
of  Psalms  and  Hymns  [see 
Appendix  A,  chap,  xi.],  294. 

Wexford,  Cromwell  at,  246. 

Whewell,  William,  quoted  as  to 
Julius  Hare,  298. 

Whitby,  sundial  at,  4. 

White,  Jamie,  at  Polwarth,  273. 

Whitefield,  George  [Tycrman,  i. 
16],   292. 

Whitehall,  Cromwell's  speeches  in 
the  Painted  Chamber  [Carlyle, 
IV.  218,  220],  243. 


INDEX 


417 


Whittingham,  versifier  of  the 
Psalms,  149,  150. 

Wight,  Isle  of,  Wilfrid  in,  69. 

Wigtown  Martyrs,  the  [Wodrow, 
iv.  248,  249  ;  Cloud  of  Wit- 
nesses, 440],  277,  278. 

V.'ilberforce,  William,  account  of 
[see  Appendix  A,  chap,  xi.], 
295,  296. 

"Wild  Whigs,  The,"  261. 

Wilfrid,  St.,  9,  68  ;  and  Psalter 
pVIontalembert,  iii.  376-378], 
68;  account  of  [ibid.,  iii.  376- 
381,  412  ;  iv.  33,  48,  72,  108], 
68,  69. 

Wilkie,  James,  primarius  of  St. 
Andrews   [Melville's  Diary,  27], 

255- 
William  the  Conqueror,  and  Lan- 

franc,   77  ;   death   of   [Ordericus 

Vitalis,  VIII.,  xiv.  and  xvi.],  95. 
Wilham       Rufus      and      Anselm 

[Montalembert,    vi.     158     seq.'\, 

77.  78.  ,      ,. 

Wilham  of  Orange,  landmg  of,  m 

England,    278. 
Wilson,  Margaret,  261  ;    death  of 

[Wodrow,    iv.    248,    249],    277, 

278. 
Winchester,  Marquis  of,  at  Basing 

House,  244. 
Winslow,  Governor,  quoted  [Arber, 

Pilgrim  Fathers,  329],  224. 
Wise    Men    of   the    East,    the,    in 

Christian  Art,  3. 
Wisedome,  versifier  of  the  Psalms, 

150. 
Wishart,  George,  account  of  [Knox, 

i.  125  seq^,  252-254. 
Wither,    George,    versifier   of   the 

Psalms,  7. 
Wittenberg,  Luther  at,  123. 
Wobum    Abbey,    Carthusians    of, 

189. 
Wodrow,      Robert,     cited,     268  ; 

quoted,    276. 


Woolos,  St.,  at  Newport  (Mon.), 
61. 

Worcester,  battle  of  [Carlyle,  iii. 
172-173].   247. 

Wordsworth,  7  ;  quoted  {Ecclesi- 
astical Sonnets),  8r,  232  ; 
quoted   {Excursion),  315. 

Worms,  Diet  of,  125. 

Wotton,  Sir  Henry,  7. 

Wiirtemburg,  Roger  ordained  at, 
219. 

Wyatt,  Sir  Thomas,  versifier  of  the 
Psalms,  7,  171  ;   insurrection  of, 

154- 
Wychf,  John,  10,  84,  121  ;    death 
of,  116. 

Xainton,  inscription  at,  186. 

Xavier,  Francis,  10,  119,  140  ; 
death  of  [Coleridge,  ii.  572],  137, 
138  ;  his  "  O  Deus,  ego  amo  Te  " 
translated  [Latin  text  in  Cole- 
ridge, i.  315],  137. 

Ximenes,  Cardinal,  10  ;  at  Oran 
[von  Hefele,  transl.  Dalton,  p. 
419],   86. 

Yaroslaflf,    builds    church    of    St. 

Sophia  at  KiefE,  39. 
York,      Duke     of,      and      CargiU 

[Wodrow,    book   iii.,    chap.    4], 

268  ;     and    Peden    {Six    Saints, 

i.  90],  272. 
York,  St.  Mary's  Abbey  at,  90. 
Ypres,     Bishop     of,     and     Count 

Egmont,   158,   160. 
Yuste,  Jeromite  convent,  Charles 

V.  at,  126. 

Zanzibar,  Livingstone  at  [Last 
Journals,  i.  i  seq.'],  342. 

Zulus,  the.  Commander  Allen  F. 
Gardiner  and  [Marsh's  Memoir, 
chap,  iv.],  338. 

Zurich,  Bishop  Hooper  at,  140. 

Z\\angli,  148. 


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